“That is well, dear heart. I am fain it should be so.”
And there the subject dropped rather abruptly, as first Clare, and then Arthur, came into the room.
Don Juan did not appear to: miss Blanche, after the first day. When he found that she and her father and sister were absent from the supper-table, he looked round with some surprise and a little perplexity; but he asked no question, and no one volunteered an explanation. He very soon found a new diversion, in the shape of Lucrece, to whom he proceeded to address his flowery language with even less sincerity than he had done to Blanche. But no sooner did Sir Thomas perceive this turn of affairs than he took the earliest opportunity of sternly demanding of his troublesome prisoner “what he meant?”
Don Juan professed entire ignorance of the purport of this question. Sir Thomas angrily explained.
“Nay, Señor, what would you?” inquired the young Spaniard, with an air of injured innocence. “An Andalusian gentleman, wheresoever he may be, and in what conditions, must always show respect to the ladies.”
“Respect!” cried the enraged squire. “Do Spanish gentlemen call such manner of talk showing respect? Thank Heaven that I was born in England! Sir, when an English gentleman carries himself toward a young maiden as you have done, he either designs to win her in honourable wedlock, or he is a villain. Which are you?”
“If we were in Spain, Señor,” answered Don Juan, fire flashing from his dark eyes, “you would answer those words with your sword. But since I am your prisoner, and have no such remedy, I must be content with a reply in speech. The customs of your land are different from ours. I will even condescend to say that I am, and for divers years have so been, affianced to a lady of mine own country. Towards the señoritas your daughters, I have shown but common courtesy, as it is understood in Spain.”
In saying which, Don Juan stated what was delicately termed by Swift’s Houynhnms, “the thing which is not.” Of what consequence was it in his eyes, when the Council of Constance had definitively decreed that “no faith was to be kept with heretics”?
Sir Thomas Enville was less given to the use of profane language than most gentlemen of his day, but in answer to this speech he swore roundly, and—though a staunch Protestant—thanked all the saints and angels that he never was in Spain, and, the Queen’s Highness’ commands excepted, never would be. As to his daughters, he would prefer turning them all into Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace to allowing one of them to set foot on the soil of that highly objectionable country. These sentiments were couched in the most peppery language of which the Squire’s lips were well capable; and having thus delivered himself, he turned on his heel and left Don Juan to his own meditations.
That caballero speedily discovered that he had addressed his last compliment to any of the young ladies at Enville Court. Henceforward he only saw them at meals, and then he found himself, much to his discomfiture, placed between Jack and Mistress Rachel. To pay delicate attentions to the latter was sheer waste of frankincense: yet it was so much in his nature, when speaking to a woman, that he began to tell her that she talked like an angel. Mistress Rachel looked him full in the face.