“Now, by St. George—” Sir Blaise yelled, raising his clinched fists. Brilliana feared at one moment that he would strike her prisoner in the face; feared in the next that he would fall at her feet dead of an apoplexy. She sailed between the antagonists and addressed Evander.
“Serious sir, will it dash you to learn that you are speaking to Sir Blaise Mickleton?”
Evander’s countenance showed no sign either of surprise or of dismay. Sir Blaise, still turkey-red, managed to gulp down his choler sufficiently to utter some syllables.
“I am that knight,” he gasped; then, turning to Brilliana, he whispered behind his hand, “Mark now how this bear will climb down.”
Brilliana, watching Evander, was not confident of apologies. Her prisoner made a slight inclination of the head towards Sir Blaise in acknowledgment of the fact of Brilliana’s presentation, and said, very calmly:
“Why, then, sir, such a jury as your world has empanelled have misread you, for if they summed your flaws aptly in their report of you, they clapped this rider on their staggering verdict, that Sir Blaise Mickleton did, at his worst, do his best to play the gentleman.”
Smiles of satisfaction rippled over Sir Blaise’s face. He did not follow the drift of Evander’s fluency but took it for compliment.
“Handsomely apologized, i’ faith,” he beamed to Brilliana. Brilliana laughed in his face.
“Why, poor man, he flouts you worse than ever,” she whispered.