Guy
stood talking with them while Dame Margaret and the count conversed apart.
Gradually as they chatted Katarina's manner, which had at first been
somewhat stiff, thawed, and Guy left her and Agnes together and went to
look through the window.
He could vaguely understand that Katarina at first, knowing that Dame
Margaret and Agnes must be aware of her going about as a boy, was standing
a little on her dignity. The simple straightforwardness of Agnes and her
admiration of the other's boldness and cleverness had disarmed Katarina,
and it was not long before they were chatting and laughing in girlish
fashion. There was a difference in their laughter, the result of the
dissimilar lives they had led. One had ever been a happy, careless child,
allowed to roam about in the castle or beyond it almost unattended, and
had only to hold herself as became the position of a maiden of rank on
special occasions, as when guests were staying in the castle; the other
had been for years her father's assistant, engaged in work requiring
shrewdness and quickness and not unattended at times with danger. She had
been brought into contact with persons of all ranks and conditions, and at
times almost forgot her own identity, and was in thought as well as manner
the quick-witted messenger of her father. After the latter had chatted for
some time with Dame Margaret he beckoned her to him.
"Dame Margaret has promised me to be your protector should aught befall
me, child," he said, "and I charge you now in her hearing should anything
happen to me to go at once to her castle at Villeroy, and should she not
be there to her castle at Summerley, which lies but twelve miles from the
English port of Southampton, and there to place yourself under her
guardianship, and to submit yourself to her will and guidance wholly and
entirely.
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