He raised eyes that, despite him, were haggard and betraying from those terrifying figures, and met that baleful glance of the lady who, because she could not be his wife, was now his relentless enemy. Her glance scared him more than her total. He lowered his eyes again to the lesser evil and cleared his throat. “This is a very heavy bill,” he said. “It is,” she agreed. “You have drunk heavily and otherwise received good entertainment. I hope you’ll fare as well at the Bird in Hand.” “Mrs. Quinn, I will be frank. My affairs have gone awry through no fault of my own. His Grace of Albemarle, upon whom I had every reason to depend, has failed me. At the moment I am a man ... hard-pressed. I am almost without resources.” “That nowise troubled you whiles you ate and drank of the best my house could offer. Yours is a tale that has been told afore by many a pitiful rogue....” “Mrs. Quinn!” he thundered. But she went on, undaunted, joying to deal a wound to the pride of this man who had lacerated her own pride so terribly. “ ... and there’s a way to deal wi’ rogues. You think that, perhaps because I am a woman, I am soft and tender; and so perhaps I am with them as deserves it. But I think I know your sort, Colonel Holles--if so be that you be a colonel. You’re not new to a house like mine; but I’ve never yet been bested by any out-at-elbow ruffler, and I’ll see to it as how you don’t best me now. I’ll say no more, though I could. I could say a deal. But I’ll say only this: if you gives me trouble I’ll ha’ the constable to you, and maybe there’ll be more than a matter of this score to settle then. You know what I mean, my man. You know what I could say an’ I would. So my advice to you is that you pay your bill without whimperings that won’t move me no more than they’ll move that wooden table.” Scorched with shame, he stood before her, curbing himself with difficulty, for he could be very violent when provoked, though thanks to an indolent disposition he did not permit himself to be provoked very easily. He suppressed his fury now, realizing that to loose it would be to have it recoil upon him and precipitate his ruin. “Mrs. Quinn,” he answered as steadily as he could, “I have sold my gear that I might pay my debt to you. Yet even so this debt exceeds the amount of my resources.” “Sold your gear, have you?” She uttered a laugh that was like a cough. “Sold the fine clothes you’d bought to impose upon them at Whitehall, you mean. But you’ve not sold everything. There’s that jewel a-flaunting in your ear that alone would pay my score twice over.”