There was a pause. His beautiful eyes flamed with a sudden light as
they rested on me. Then the lids drooped demurely, and he drew a deep
breath. But when he spoke there was scorn in his voice.

"And, no doubt, it was that same motive kept you there, at peace for
three whole years, in slothful ease, the motleyed Fool, jesting and
capering for his enemy's delectation--you, a man with the knightly memory
of your foully-wronged parent to cry hourly shame upon you. No doubt you
lacked the opportunity to bring the tyrant to account. Or was it that
you were content to let him make a mock of you so long as he housed and
fed you and clothed you in your garish livery of shame?

"Spare me, Excellency," I cried again. "Of your charity let my past be
done with. When he drove me forth with threats of hanging, from which
your gracious sister saved me, I turned my steps to Rome at her bidding
to--"

"To find honourable employment at my hands," he interrupted quietly.
Then suddenly rising, and speaking in a voice of thunder--"And what,
then, of your revenge?" he cried.

"It has been frustrated," I answered lamely. "Sufficient do I account
the ruin that already I have wrought in my life by the pursuit of that
phantom. I was trained to arms, my lord. Let me discard for good these
tawdry rags, and strap a soldier's harness to my back."

"How came you to journey hither thus?" he asked, suddenly turning the
subject.