Blaise saluted Evander, who returned the salutation and quitted
the room. Master Paul, taking leave of Brilliana, whispered,

"When I am knight, you shall be my lady."

"When you are king, diddle-diddle, I shall be queen," Brilliana
laughed at him, making a reverence. He joined Halfman at the door and
Master Peter approached Brilliana.

"When I wear my new title, I will lay it at your feet," he promised,
solemnly.

"Can you not keep it in your own hands?" Brilliana questioned. She
made him a reverence, he made her his best bow and went to the door,
where Master Paul waited with Halfman. Here a point of ceremony
arose.

"After you, Sir Peter," Master Paul suggested. Master Peter fondled
the title.

"Sir Peter! It sounds nobly. Nay, after you, Sir Paul," he protested.
They were at this business so long that Halfman lost patience.

"Stand not on the order of your going," he growled between his teeth,
then grasping with an air of bluff good-fellowship 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 buttery,
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 God. But
your scrupulosity need not shiver. 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 S