“Signify you our blessed Lord, Mistress Perrote?”
“Surely, my maid. Could any other answer thereto?”
“I reckon so,” said Amphillis, calmly, as she put away her brush, and began undressing.
“I would make sure, if I were thou. For the subjects be like to dwell in the Court when they be preferred to higher place. ‘Ye ben servantis to that thing to which ye han obeisched.’ (Note 2.) Whose servant art thou? Who reigns in thine inner soul, Phyllis?”
“Soothly, Mistress, I myself. None other, I ween.”
“Nay, one other must there needs be. Thou obeyest the rule of one of two masters—either Christ our Lord, or Satan His enemy.”
“In very deed, Mistress, I serve God.”
“Then thou art concerned to please God in everything. Or is it rather, that thou art willing to please God in such matters as shall not displease Amphillis Neville?”
Amphillis folded up sundry new and not altogether agreeable thoughts in the garments which she was taking off and laying in neat order on the top of her chest for the morning. Perrote waited for the answer. It did not come until Amphillis’s head was on the pillow.
“Cannot I please God and myself both?”