"I was near falling with fatigue, sir," I answered; "and--and--and, in truth, I liked not the talk at the table where I sat." "Poor lad!" said he, gently patting the shoulder where his hand did lie, and thereafter drawing the hand away; "poor lad! Would you grow to be a man? Harden your ears--your ears, mark me, not your heart." And I said nothing to him, but to myself that I feared both would need it ere long. And then there came to us M. de Rondiniacque in search of Captain Royston, crying jovially: "Aha! have I found you, truant Master Host? His Highness did but now ask for you, and wonders somewhat, I think, at your long absence." To which Royston replied: "I warrant His Highness knows that a host without hostess or servants is no little put to it to house, feed, and bed so many guests. I will go to him, and make my excuse." He then turned to me, saying: "Prithee, gentle friend, be of better comfort. It is not to His Highness alone that your great service has been rendered, and I would not have you cheerless. Godemar, hold the lad in talk a while. All this is strange to him, and he is overborne with fatigue." He then took some steps toward the door, but again turned to my side, and--"Speak your best English, Godemar," said he, "and your modest jests, if you have them. None of your ribald tales,--'t is a home-bred youth." Upon which, with a kindly nod to me, and a slap on the shoulder of a weight more suited to my garments than my sex, Captain Royston left the room. M. de Rondiniacque looked upon me with a merry twinkle in his eye. "_Ma foi!_" he said, "M. le Capitaine lays heavy commands upon me. Must I even do as he says?" "It were best," I answered, with some severity, and never turning my eyes from the fire. "I see not wherefore," said he; "I would gladly cheer you, lad, and he would take all the merriment from our jesting." "Indeed," I replied, "I had rather never laugh again than hear more such talk as did pass for wit around us at dinner." He flung himself with a movement of much petulance into a chair on the other side of the hearth, and--"My faith!" he cried, "'t is even as they did tell me: a sorry land and a sad! A country, _mort de ma vie!_ where one must shift with beer for wine, mists for sunshine, and hags and hoydens for women." "Alack!" I cried, being vastly amused; "have the women also displeased your lordship?" "Gadso!" answered M. de Rondiniacque, "they have, and mightily. _Mon Dieu!_ in all the days since we set foot ashore I have not seen one I would stand to observe a second time. I begin to see it is easy to be a Puritan in such a land." And when I did not answer him, he peered curiously across the flickering twilight into my face. Anon he rose and came to me, with one hand seizing me by the arm, and raising my chin, not over gently, with the other--"_Ma foi_" he said, laughing, "with laces and furbelows, and those great eyes, wouldst make a better thyself than any lass of them all."