"Sir Richard Chester of Dent," answered Dick, looking round the room, and then long and earnestly at his questioner. He thought he had never seen anyone so beautiful, or so handsomely dressed. The gentleman wore a coat of tawny velvet with open sleeves, showing a white cambric shirt with very fine lace at the wrists. Over this he had a sleeveless buff leather coat. Round his throat was a gorgelet of steel, over which fell a lace collar, and a richly-embroidered baldric held his sword in a gold-tipped scabbard. He had gold spurs fastened to his long wrinkled riding-boots. Such men and such clothes had never been to Dent in Dick's lifetime. He might well regard them with awe. "Sir Richard Chester!" said the gentleman, flicking a crumb from his sleeve with a lace handkerchief, and returning Dick's stare with good-humoured carelessness. "There seem to be a good many baronets in that family, gentlemen," and he smiled round the table. His friends laughed softly. "Three within a month!" said one. "Four, for 'tis barely a month since the first Sir Reginald died." "Four," said another gentleman. "Sir Reginald the First, Sir Reginald the Second, Sir John, and--" "Sir Richard," said the first gentleman, and he pointed at Dick with a beautiful white hand covered with jewels. "I don't understand," said Dick, coming nearer, eagerly. "Farther off," said the gentleman, pushing back his chair, but still good-humouredly, "if you will be so good! Thank you. I perceive you have been in a quagmire." Dick had begun to feel hot and uncomfortable. The gentlemen seemed so indifferent to any news he might have, and they spoke so slowly, and moved so negligently, that his preconceived ideas of his own importance, and of a commanding officer's desire for information, deserted him. His nervousness made him aggressive. That indefinable something, that was not insolence, and yet was supreme indifference to his feelings, vexed him bitterly, as Giles the stableman's manners had vexed him when, the first day of the siege, he refused to let down the bridge. He clenched his hands, and, scowling, spoke up quickly. "I am Sir Richard Chester, and I have held Dent Castle for nearly a week, I may tell you. And I am come now to ask the King's will--whether we hold it longer or whether we give it up, or how we shall act." "'Tis gracious of your honour to consult him," said the other gently. "You will observe, sir, that the young gentleman is so used to negotiating with sovereigns as a brother-potentate that he drops of nature into the regal 'we'," said another gentleman in an elaborately-explaining tone from the far end of the table. Dick turned scowling to him, tossed back his clinging curls, and simply glared at him. The young gentleman covered his eyes, and murmured: "I am scorched," almost inaudibly. Dick was trembling with rage, and would have flown violently at him, but for the restraining hand of the officer behind him.