"Because I cannot obey your command."
He took a step towards me as if in anger, but he stopped suddenly, and then I saw a change come over his face. The old cunning leer came back to his eyes again, the wine-inflamed, passionate man had gone, and instead I saw the cynical mocking man I had seen land at Dover.
He sat down on a low chair, and began to fondle his lap-dog, glancing at us both curiously as he did so.
"I am indeed fortunate," he said. "Mostly my servants say they will obey me, and then seek to have their own will, while you say you will not obey me and will have to do so in spite of all. Moreover, this youth said he had no favour to ask at my hands. Well, and what game are you playing, young master?"
"I am trying to be an honest man," I replied.
"Prithee come a little closer, for surely thou art a rare sight," he said. "For twelve years I have been trying to find an honest man and a virtuous woman, and up to now I have discovered neither."
"And yet your mother is alive, sire," I said.
Again his eyes flashed fire, and I thought he was going to call his servants, and order that I should be thrown in some dungeon. But again he mastered himself.
"I have not made up my mind whether I shall give you the cap and bells, or send you to the most stinking dungeon in Fleet Prison, Master Rashcliffe," he said quietly. "But of that anon; at present I am vastly enjoying myself. There is some reason in your mind which makes you think you can answer your king as you have answered him. You fancy you have some secret power over him. Come now, speak!"
"That need not be Your Majesty. I was ever taught that a man's duty was to protect a woman."