Part 28 (2/2)
”Stand not on the order of your going,” he growled between his teeth, then grasping with an air of bluff good-fellows.h.i.+p an arm of either squire, he banged them somewhat roughly together.
”Nay, arm in arm, as neighbor knights should,” he suggested, and so jostled them out of the chamber and conducted them to the b.u.t.tery, where for the next hour he diverted himself by making them very drunk indeed.
XXV
ROMEO AND JULIET
Brilliana turned to Evander.
”Well, Captain Puritan, are you displeased with me?”
Evander disclaimed such thought.
”Why should I be displeased that you, a King's woman, serve the King?”
Brilliana was pertinacious.
”If you were a King's man would you applaud me?”
”If I were a King's man,” Evander confessed, ”I could not choose but applaud you.”
”But being a Puritan?” Brilliana persisted.
”Why,” said Evander, ”being a Puritan, I must ask you, were you just to your victims?”
Brilliana swept them away disdainfully.
”Each would have cheated the King in an hour, when, to all who think with me, to cheat the King is little better than to cheat G.o.d. But your scrupulosity need not s.h.i.+ver. If the King do not knight my misers I will requite them, little as they deserve it.”
Evander admired her.
”You are a brave lady.”
Brilliana gave a sigh.
”No, I am not brave at all; I am newly very timid. I am frightened of the real world now, and feel only at my ease with shadows.”
”Shall we journey into shadow-land?” Evander asked.
”By what path?” Brilliana questioned. Evander touched a brown, torn book.
”Shall we read again in Master Shakespeare's book?”
For indeed they had read much in his pages that morning. Brilliana looked pleased.
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