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, she felt as if she were gliding between fire and ice. "One side of me was frozen, and the other done to a crisp." She lifted her hand commandingly. "We will have no bickering here," she protested. Evander paid her a salutation, and, moving a little aside, resumed his book. He would not retire while Sir Blaise was in presence, but he guessed that the lady wished for speech with her friend. Sir Blaise did not find her words consolatory, though she affected consolation. "The bear licks with a rough tongue," she whispered. Sir Blaise slapped his palms together. "You shall see me ring him, you shall see me bait him, if you will but leave us." "How shall I see if I leave?" Brilliana asked, provokingly. "But 'tis no matter." As she spoke she thought of Halfman, and a merry scheme danced in her head. "Gentles, I must leave you," she cried, with a pretty little reverence that included both men. Then in a moment she had slipped out of the pleasaunce and was running down the avenue. In the house she found Halfman. "Quick!" she cried, breathlessly. "Sir Blaise and Mr. Cloud are wrangling yonder like dogs over a bone." "Do you wish me to keep the peace between them?" Halfman questioned. Brilliana did not exactly know what she wished. She was fretted at the poor show a King's man had made before a Puritan; if Sir Blaise could do something to humble the Puritan it might not be wholly amiss. So much Halfman gathered from her jerky scraps of sentences; also, that on no account must the disputants be permitted to come to swords. Halfman nodded, caught up a staff, and ran full tilt to the pleasaunce. The moment his back was turned Brilliana, instead of remaining in the house, came out again, doubled on her course, and dodging among the hedges found herself peeping unseen upon the enclosure she had just quitted and the brawl at its height. XX SIR BLAISE PAYS HIS PENALTY When Brilliana quitted them the two men had regarded each other steadily for a few seconds in silence. Then Sir Blaise spoke. "You made merry with me just now in ease and safety, a lady being by." Evander shrugged his shoulders. "Had no lady been by I should have been more merry and less tender." Sir Blaise scowled. "I am ill to provoke, my master. Those quarrels end sadly that are quarrels picked with me." Again Evander shrugged his shoulders. "I pick no quarrel, sir. You asked me very straightly what I knew of Sir Bla
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