"He didn't say that, but it may well reckon up to much that figure," she admitted. "You'll think of it, Simon?" "Think of it? I! Not I!" "You won't?" "Or I mightn't attempt it." "Ah! You will attempt it?" "Of a certainty." "You're very ready. Is it all honesty?" "Is ever anything all honesty, madame--saving your devotion to the King?" "And the French lady's to her religion?" laughed Nell. "On my soul, I think the picture that the King of France saw was a fair one. Have you looked on it, Simon?" "On my life I don't love her." "On my life you will." "You seek to stop me by that prophecy?" "I don't care whom you love," said she. Then her face broke into smiles. "What liars women are!" she cried. "Yes, I do care; not enough to grow wrinkled, but enough to wish I hadn't grown half a lady and could----" "You stop?" "Could--could--could slap your face, Simon." "It would be a light infliction after breaking a man's heart," said I, turning my cheek to her and beckoning with my hand. "You should have a revenge on my face; not in kind, but in kindness. I can't strike a man who won't hit back." She laughed at me with all her old enticing gaiety. I had almost sealed the bargain; she was so roguish and so pretty. Had we met first then, it is very likely she would have made the offer, and very certain that I should have taken it. But there had been other days; I sighed. "I loved you too well once to kiss you now, mistress," said I. "You're mighty strange at times, Simon," said she, sighing also, and lifting her brows. "Now, I'd as lief kiss a man I had loved as any other." "Or slap his face?" "If I'd never cared to kiss, I'd never care for the other either. You rise?" "Why, yes. I have my commission, haven't I?" "I give you this one also, and yet you keep it?" "Is that slight not yet forgiven?" "All is forgiven and all is forgotten--nearly, Simon." At this instant--and since man is human, woman persistent, and courtesy imperative, I did not quarrel with the interruption--a sound came from the room above, strange in a house where Nell lived (if she will pardon so much candour), but oddly familiar to me. I held up my hand and listened. Nell's rippling laugh broke in. "Plague on him!" she cried. "Yes, he's here. Of a truth he's resolute to convert me, and the fool amuses me." "Phineas Tate!" I exclaimed, amazed; for beyond doubt his was the voice. I could tell his intonation of a penitential psalm among a thousand. I had heard it in no other key. "You didn't know? Yet that other fool, your servant, is always with him. They've been closeted together for two hours at a time." "Psalm-singing?" "Now and again. They're often quiet too." "He preaches to you?" "Only a little; when we chance to meet at the door he gives me a curse and promises a blessing; no more." "It's very little to come to Dover for." "You would have come farther for less of my company once, sir."