“The creature claims gentility,” said Talbot, as he examined the trinket. “Lovel you call yourself. But Lovel bears barry nebuly or chevronels. This coat has three plain charges. Can you read them, Nick, for my eyes are weak! I am curious to know from whom he stole it.”
The boy scanned it closely. “Three of something I think they are fleur-de-lys, which would spell Montgomery. Or lions' heads, maybe, for Buchan?”
He passed it to Lord Charles, who held it to a candle's light. “Nay, I think they are Cummin garbs. Some poor fellow dirked and spoiled.”
Mr. Lovel was outraged and forgot his fears. He forgot, indeed, most things which he should have remembered. He longed only to establish his gentility in the eyes of those three proud gentlemen. The liquor was ebbing in him and with it had flown all his complacence. He felt small and mean and despised, and the talents he had been pluming himself on an hour before had now shrunk to windlestraws.
“I do assure you, sirs,” he faltered, “the ring is mine own. I had it from my father, who had it from his. I am of an ancient house, though somewhat decayed.”
His eyes sought those of his inquisitors with the pathos of a dog. But he saw only hostile faces—Talbot's grave and grim, Lord Charles' contemptuous, the boy's smiling ironically.
“Decayed, indeed,” said the dark man, “pitifully decayed. If you be gentle the more shame on you.”
Mr. Lovel was almost whining. “I swear I am honest. I do my master's commissions and report what I learn.”
“Aye, sir, but how do you learn it? By playing the imposter and winning your way into an unsuspecting confidence. To you friendship is a tool and honour a convenience. You cheat in every breath you draw. And what a man gives you in his innocence may bring him to the gallows. By God! I'd rather slit throats on a highway for a purse or two than cozen men to their death by such arts as yours.”
In other circumstances Mr. Lovel might have put up a brazen defence, but now he seemed to have lost assurance. “I do no ill,” was all he could stammer, “for I have no bias. I am for no side in politics.”