Sir Blaise shook his staff in protest of indignation. "Is it possible that such a rascal usurps the privileges of gentlefolk?" "He carries himself like a gentleman," Brilliana answered. "More's the pity that he should be false to his king and his kind." Sir Blaise smiled condescendingly. "Believe me, dear lady, you are misled. A woman may be deceived by an exterior. Doubtless he has picked up his gentility in the servants' hall of some great house, and seeks to curry your favor by airing it." "He has persuaded those that are shrewd judges of men to praise him." Again Sir Blaise laughed his fat laugh. "Ha, ha! Shrewd judges of men. I will take no man's judgment but my own of this rascal. Had I word with him you should soon see me set him down." Brilliana's glance wandering from the pied pomposity who strutted before her, saw a sharp contrast through the yew-tree arch. A man in sober habit was moving slowly over the grass in the direction of the pleasaunce, moving slowly, for he was carrying an open book and his eyes were fixed upon its pages. Truly the sombre Puritan made a better figure than her swaggering neighbor. She looked up at Sir Blaise with a pretty maliciousness in her smile. "You can have your will even now," she said, "for I spy my prisoner coming here--and reading, too." Sir Blaise swung round upon his heels and stared in the direction indicated by Brilliana. He saw Evander, black against the sunlit trees, the sunlit grasses, and he smiled derisively. He was very confident that there was no courage as there could be no wit in any Puritan. These things were the privileges of Cavaliers. "His brains are buried in his book," he sneered. "If a stone came in his way now he would stumble over it, he's so deep in his sour studies. 'Tis some ponderous piece of divinity, I'll wager, levelled against kings." He thought he was speaking low to his companion, but his was not a voice of musical softness, and its tones jarred the quiet air. Evander caught the sound of it, lifted his head, and, looking before him over his book, saw in the yew haven Brilliana seated and a gaudy-coated gentleman standing by her side. He was immediately for turning and hastening in another direction, but Brilliana, for all she hated him, would not now have it so. Perhaps she had been piqued by Sir Blaise's too confident assumption of superiority to the judgment of her people; perhaps she thought it might divert her to see Puritan and Cavalier face each other before her in the shadowed circle of yews. Whatever her reason, she raised her hand and raised her voice to stay Evander's purpose. "Sir, sir!" she cried. "Mr. Cloud, by your leave, I would have you come hither. Do not turn aside." Thus summoned, Evander walked with slightly quickened pace to the place where Brilliana sat and saluted her with formal courtesy.