“That is better,” she cried, laughing. “You can be quick enough when you choose, Master Malapert. But you are more fit to speak of high and weary matters with my sister Mary. She will have none of the prattle and courtesy of Sir George, and yet I love them well. But tell me, Nigel, why do you come to Cosford to-night?”
“To bid you farewell.”
“Me alone?”
“Nay, Edith, you and your sister Mary and the good knight your father.”
“Sir George would have said that he had come for me alone. Indeed you are but a poor courtier beside him. But is it true, Nigel, that you go to France?”
“Yes, Edith.”
“It was so rumored after the King had been to Tilford. The story goes that the King goes to France and you in his train. Is that true?”
“Yes, Edith, it is true.”
“Tell me, then, to what part you go, and when?”
“That, alas! I may not say.”