“You shall hear,” said Blount grimly. “A proper courtier, quoth Master Greville—a very proper courtier. I doubt it not. How looked he when you saw him last?”
“It was at Whitehall,” said Greville. “You know the man—the mirror of fashion, the prince of wit, the pink of assurance. One noon he met the Queen just stepping from her closet. ‘What time is it, good sir?’ quoth she. ‘What time your Highness pleases,’ he answered. ‘Then,’ says her Majesty, ‘I will have it the hour when men speak truth.’ ‘Alas, madam!’ says Raleigh, ‘do you seek a pretext for destroying me?’ ‘What pretext, sir?’ she asks. ‘Why,’ says he, ‘the enforced confession of my hopeless passion for a Queen.’”
The soldier snorted alarmingly. “I warrant he’d rehearsed it, preening and curling before his glass,” he said.
“Alack!” said Sidney; “his hair curls naturally—the worse for sleeker heads.”
“How went he?” said Blount—“a painted popinjay?”
“Always in silk and velvet,” answered Greville demurely—“white for choice, and his doublet jewelled in the seams. He becomes his dress, in sooth; knows how to shadow with ambrosial fleece the high pale culture of his forehead; wears his sword as if he used it; hangs his cloak——”
The soldier roared out:
“Hold! His cloak? God’s grace! It hangs—hang him, I say! So I picture him—all but the cloak. It was here we sat together, in this green arbour, but a year ago. Just home from bloody Ireland was he, yet as white and cool as swan’s-down. We were here, I say, we two, in this very spot, and the Court at Pleazaunce. The Queen was in her barge on the river. We saw her pass, and the rogue’s eyes dreamed. Some caprice—some premonition belike—engaged her Majesty to land at the common steps yonder. They were wet and foul, the morning having rained, and, perceiving his chance, my comrade snatched up cloak, and leaped and joined the throng that hovered on the royal advent. I came more leisurely behind, and saw the pretty Queen mount up and hesitate, pursing her lips in comical dismay before a pool of mud. And then, all in a moment—but you’ve heard the story?”
“He spread his cloak for her to step on?”
“Damn him!”