For all his secret convictions, vicarious dignity would not permit him to let the lady think that she had had any hand in this escapade. His answering whisper contained some austerity. "I have yet to learn, señorita, that my master is led by aught save his own inclination. Let it go. I am avised of your movements; it but remains for me to get speech with Sir Nicholas." Her eyes flickered to his face. "Is it so easy? Can you do it?" "It will not be easy," said Joshua severely, "but certainly I shall do it. Be of good cheer; trust me, and trust my master. No more of this. Dangerous dealing!" He edged away along the bench, and she was left to her seeming prayers. She was oddly comforted by this talk with Joshua. He spoke with an assurance he was far from feeling, but she was not to know that. She might doubt still, but she now had hope, for if Joshua, who knew Beauvallet so well, could be sanguine, she too, might expect a happy issue. He was not perhaps so sanguine as he chose to appear, but for the timorous man he declared himself to be, he was very cool. A squalid tavern in the meaner part of the city now housed him; if he could but get a sight of his master he would have only one regret, and this the loss of his brave mustachios. "Alack!" he told himself mournfully. "I who was, I believe, a personable man, now look like some starveling scrivener." He spat into the kennel. "So much for that. It boots not to bewail my lost mustachios; they are very decently interred. The loss of a fair beard I can better support: one may call it a fortune of war. But the mustachios are another and more serious affair. Something of the cock of Beauvallet's own, I apprehend. I wore them with a good grace. A plague on all shaven lips! But this is to talk more and no more. I do not repine." He walked on towards his lodging. "Now what, I must ask myself? Do you come out of that stronghold, master? Nay, we must admit it to be an impossibility." He threw out his chest and strutted a little. "Ha! A word we do not know. We maybe have some few wiles left that they may still blear the eyes of these Spanish dawcocks." He abated his pace and abandoned the swagger. "Yet I own myself to be very pigeon-livered in this matter. You may say I had his word he would escape if he were taken. Maybe we brag a little--a very little." He shook his head slightly. "Master, if I knew of a way--but I make no doubt a way will present itself to me. I must lie close, as I am bid, and keep good watch. To do else might be to o'erset deep laid schemes. Courage, Joshua!"