"
"Shall one 'wear a rough garment to deceive'?" she quoted with a laugh.
"Don't you remember the next verse? You ought to retort: 'I am no
prophet, I am an husbandman!' But that would not be quite right, for
you are a sailor."
She blushed a little at the chance turn of the phrase. Neither the
girl nor her hearers recalled the succeeding verses, wherein the
destruction of Jerusalem is foretold: "And I will bring the third part
through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will
try them as gold is tried."
Indeed, a new direction was given to Elsie's thoughts by the somewhat
scowling aspect of Christobal's face. He was looking at Courtenay in a
manner which betokened a certain displeasure. The Spaniard's
cultivated cynicism was subjugated by a more powerful sentiment. It
seemed to Elsie that he envied Courtenay his youth and high spirits,
for, in very truth, the mere exchange of those harmless pleasantries
had tuned the younger man's soul to the transcendental pitch of the
knight errant. In his heart he was vowing to rescue this fair lady
from the dangers which beset her, though he said jokingly with his lips:
"If a husbandman has to do with a tiller I may claim some expert
knowledge, Miss Maxwell.
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