‘Who and what art thou, then?’
‘Who but Harlequin Clerivault, please your Grace, some time gentleman of fortune, and since confidant and right-hand man to thine Uncle. He hangs on me, ha!’
‘His confidant, say you? In what way of speaking, Master Clerivault?’
‘In the law’s way of speaking, Sir, which is to say that, being a Judge, he hath judged most excellently of a paragon.’
‘Yourself, to wit?’
‘Thou hast said it, not I.’
‘What is it to be a paragon?’
‘It is to be the best of one’s kind, Sir, as a king most kingly, as a knight most knightly, as a retainer the most capable and to be trusted; to which mental graces those of the body should figure, as it were, in apposition, whereby a straight leg should express honesty, an arched brow love, or attachment, a chin slightly receding forbearance, and a fine shape signify proportion in all. Possessing the sum of which endowments, a man may call himself superlative, which is to be a paragon.’
His lids half closed; he pointed his moustache with an inimitable air. The corners of Brion’s mouth flickered.
‘I understand,’ he said. ‘And of all that my uncle was the judge? I think he must be a great Judge, Master Clerivault.’