“Mistress Reicht,” said Denys, with great dignity and ceremony, indeed so great as to verge on the absurd, “you are turned off. If on a slight acquaintance I might advise, I'd say, since you are a servant no more, be a mistress, a queen.”
“Easier said than done,” replied Reicht bluntly.
“Not a jot. You see here one who is a man, though but half an arbalestrier, owing to that devilish Englishman's arrow, in whose carcass I have, however, left a like token, which is a comfort. I have twenty gold pieces” (he showed them) “and a stout arm. In another week or so I shall have twain. Marriage is not a habit of mine; but I capitulate to so many virtues. You are beautiful, good-hearted, and outspoken, and above all, you take the part of my she-comrade. Be then an arbalestriesse!”
“And what the dickens is that?” inquired Reicht.
“I mean, be the wife, mistress, and queen of Denys of Burgundy here present.”
A dead silence fell on all.
It did not last long, though; and was followed by a burst of unreasonable indignation.
Catherine. “Well, did you ever?”
Margaret. “Never in all my born days.”
Catherine. “Before our very faces.”