'None,' answered Richard, but could not bring himself to ask how he had sped.
'Then will I own to thee that I have gained as little. I will madden myself telling thee whom I hate, and to thy comfort, that she despises me like any Virginia slave.'
'Nay, that I am sure she doth not. She can despise nothing that is honourable.'
'Dost thou then count me honourable, Heywood?' said Scudamore, in a voice of surprise, putting forth a thin white hand, and placing it on Richard's where it lay huge and brown on the coverlid: 'Then honourable I will be.'
'And, in that resolve, art, sir Rowland.'
'I will be honourable,' repeated Scudamore, angrily, with flushing cheek, and hard yet flashing eye, 'because thou thinkest me such, although my hate would, an' it might, damn thee to lowest hell.'
'Nay, but thou wilt be honourable for honour's sake,' said Richard. 'Bethink thee, when first we met, we were but boys: now are we men, and must put away boyish things.'
'Dost call it a boyish thing to be madly in love with the fairest and noblest and bravest mistress that ever trod the earth—though she be half a puritan, alack?'
'She half a puritan!' exclaimed Heywood. 'She hates the very wind of the word.'
'She may hate the word, but she is the thing. She hath read me such lessons as none but a puritan could.'