The vane of Halfman's attitude towards the captive had veered strongly in the past half-hour. He had been ready to treat him well, for such was Brilliana's pleasure; he was willing to make friends and taste the agreeables of the magnanimous victor. But the conquered man had gained no ground that morning in the heart of one of his conquerors. He ate little, which Halfman pitied; he drank little, which Halfman despised; and it was with a much-augmented disdain that he beheld Evander dash his solitary cup with water. "Craftily qualified, curse him," he thought; "the fellow's a damned Cassio, and will be fumbling with his right hand and his left in a twinkle." In this he was disappointed; Evander's draught wrought no havoc in his speech or demeanor; Halfman was more disappointed that the prisoner took so coldly his laudations of his lady. "The Roundpoll is so mad to be mastered by a woman that he has not enough gentility in his thin wits to spur him to a compliment." His hostile thoughts brewed in his heated brain-pan till their fumes fevered him. As he led the way by stair and corridor, his mood for quarrel grew the keener that he knew his choler could find no hope of ventage with a prisoner committed to his care. And even as he thought this, chance seemed to furnish him with some occasion for satisfaction. They were passing by the open door of a room which had long been used as a place of arms at Harby, and its walls were hung with weapons of the time and weapons of an earlier generation. Halfman had passed much time there with the brisker fellows of the garrison, breaking them in to feats of weapon-play, and he smiled at the memory and the magnitude of his own dexterity. He paused for a moment at the threshold and looked round at Evander. "Here," he said, with a smile that was half a leer and an intonation that was little less than a sneer--"here is a spot that will scarce have enough attraction for your worship to merit your worship's stay." Evander, who had been following his guide almost mechanically, enveloped in his own gray reflections, took surprised note of his companion's changed bearing. Up to now he had been civil enough, even if his civility had not been of a quality greatly to Evander's liking, yet now his blustering good-humor gave place to something akin to deliberate offence. But he might be mistaken, and it was not for a prisoner to snatch at straws of quarrel. Therefore he protested, courteously: "Why should you think that a soldier takes no interest in a soldier's tools?" Halfman gave a shrug to his shoulders that might or might not be intended to annoy. "Your worship is too raw a soldier to know much of these same tickers and tappers. Let us rather to the library for volumes of divinity."