‘Such an invitation,’ answered Brion, ‘as the fowler lures his quarry withal. For my manners, not being framed on falsehood and cozenage, they were not made to please you.’ His boldness seemed to strike a very stillness in the room, so tense that one could hear, as it were, the Captain’s skin pricking. Leicester’s expression did not change or move, but his nostrils flickered, and sudden lamps seemed turned up in his eyes. ‘So?’ he said softly: ‘a spirited retort; yet wise, in the circumstances?--Well, we’ll question. Dost know me--who I am?’ ‘Too well, indeed.’ ‘Too well, yet not well enough, I’ll venture, or some thought of peril might come to sing in you a milder note.’ ‘I have that thought,’ said Brion. ‘I should be a fool not to.’ ‘Ah! You have that thought--and, mayhap, the guilty conscience that fathered it?’ ‘I miss your meaning.’ ‘I think not. Confess your design; make a clean breast of it; and perchance--I’ll not say; but certain considerations may weigh with me--your peril may be less.’ ‘Will you tell me my design? I have known of none, but to avoid where I could the very thought and sight of you.’ ‘Wherefore you waited me in a public place, and dared, you young presumptuous fool, to make public manifestation of your feelings. What, you’d show your high displeasure, would you!’ He rocked a little, back and forth, his lip lifting. ‘I waited you not,’ answered Brion, undaunted. ‘That meeting--it was the last from my desire. Methinks, had I foreseen it, I had never come to London.’ ‘Better for you, sirrah, an you had not, nor listened to the flattering persuasions of a crafty counsellor: better had you stayed in your rustic obscurity, satisfied, with that old besotted rogue, your kinsman, to risk the penalties for recusancy, than run the deadlier peril of a throw with me. Ah, that opens your eyes! You did not guess, maybe, the range of my knowledge, when you complotted to discredit me.’ ‘With whom? But what is the use to ask. I have plotted with no one--been guilty of no design against your credit. As to my feelings, I cannot control my instincts, nor would not if I could. For my kinsman, who loved and cherished me, when those who had owed me all disclaimed their debt, he is no rogue--I throw the slander in your teeth. It is worthy of one whose range of knowledge works through such vile means and instruments as have been used to-day to trap an unsuspecting boy. Belike it was he, that same lying reptile, that informed you of how I fell away that morning on seeing you. The action was of repulsion--in itself a convincing witness to any but a fawning pickthank. A plotter, methinks, had concealed his feelings more than I did.’