“You haven’t sold it!” she shrilled as he stepped into the back parlour where she was at the moment stirring, and she pointed to the ear-ring, which glowed like an ember under a veil of his brown hair. “You’ve changed your mind. You think to come whimpering here again, that you may save the trinket at my cost.” And then the devil whispered an unfortunate thought, and so begat in her a sudden furious jealousy. Before he could answer her, before he could recover from the gaping amazement in which he stood to receive the onslaught of her wrath, she was sweeping on: “I understand!” She leered an instant evilly. “It’s a love-token, eh? The gift of some fat Flemish burgomaster’s dame, belike, whom ye no doubt cozened as ye would have cozened me. That’s why ye can’t part with it--not even to pay me the money you owe for bed and board, for the food ye’ve guzzled and the wine ye swilled, ye good-for-nothing out-at-elbow jackanapes. But ye’ve had your warning, and since ye don’t heed it ye’ll take the....” “Hold your peace, woman,” he interrupted, thundering, and silenced her by his sudden show of passion. He advanced upon her, so that she recoiled in some alarm, yet bridling even then. Then as suddenly he checked, curbed himself, and laughed. Forth from his pocket he lugged the heavy ducal purse, slid back the gold rings that bound it and brought the broad yellow pieces into view at its gaping mouth. “What is the total of this score of yours?” he asked contemptuously, in the remnants of his anger. “Name it, take your money, and give me peace.” But she was no longer thinking of her score. She was stricken with amazement at the sight of the purse he held, and the gold with which it bulged. Round-eyed she stared at it, and then at him. And then, because she could not conjecture the source of this sudden wealth, she must assume the worst, with the readiness to which such minds as hers are prone. The suspicion narrowed her blue eyes; it settled into conviction, and fetched an unpleasant curl to the lips of her broad mouth. “And how come you by this gold?” she asked him, sinisterly quiet. “Is that your affair, ma’am?” “I thought you was above purse-cutting,” she said, mightily disdainful. “But it seems I was as deceived in you there as in other ways.” “Why, you impudent bawd!” he roared in his rage, and turned her livid by the epithet. “You vagrant muck-rake, is that a word for an honest woman?” “Honest, you thieving drab! Do you boast yourself honest? Your cheating score gives the lie to that. Give me the total of it, that I may pay the swindling sum, and shake the dust of your tavern from my heels.” That, as you realize, was but the beginning of a scene of which I have no mind to give you all the details. Some of them are utterly unprintable. Her voice shrilled up like an oyster-woman’s, drawing the attention of the few who occupied the common room, and fetching Tim the drawer in alarm to the door of the little parlour.