“Mr. Tuke!” she implored. Then said she: “If you are great friends, take one another’s hands.”
The two glanced each at each comically; but neither moved.
“There!” she cried. “Is it for you to deceive a woman? You were going to fight; and what about?”
“Not you, my dear,” said Sir David.
“Fie!” she said, blushing. “’Tis never gentlewomen that set gallants by the ears. I would take it no honour, brother, to call yours in question.”
The two had nothing to say.
“I demand to know!” she cried imperiously, stamping her foot.
“Madam,” stuttered Mr. Tuke—“it—it merely turns on a difference of opinion.”
She courtesied to him very prettily.
“The lion and the bear,” she said, “were e’en glad to lie down and take breath; when by comes a fox and seizes the prey they were too exhausted to dispute him the possession of. Doth the difference of opinion turn on one imprisoned hard by? Here enters the fox, good gentlemen, and offers herself an arbitrator.”