“You have done well,” she said, with the tears in her eyes for laughter. Halfman kept a grave face and Evander wondered.
“Call me your knight,” Master Paul pleaded, with a languishing look.
“You have done well, my knight,” Brilliana repeated; then, turning to Tiffany, she bade her see that the chest was set in a place of safety. The two men took up their burden again and followed Tiffany out of the room. But in a jiffy the maid was back again and whispering in her mistress’s ear.
Brilliana turned her amused gaze upon Master Paul.
“Master Hungerford,” she entreated, “will you be so good as to wait awhile in the next chamber. I have some immediate business to deal with, but I would be loath to part company with you so soon if you have the leisure to wait.”
Master Hungerford, protesting his readiness to attend upon her pleasure, was promptly ushered by Halfman into an adjoining room, where he left him, and having closely shut the door, came back shaking with suppressed laughter to Brilliana. Evander, looking from the mirthful man to the mirthful maid, felt constrained to question.
“Why are you so merry?”
“You will know ere the sun is much older,” Brilliana answered, composing her countenance, “for here comes the other.”
As she spoke Tiffany returned, ushering in Master Peter Rainham and a fresh brace of Brilliana’s servants, staggering, like their predecessors, under the weight of a great chest. The certainty that some astonishing jest was towards set Evander on the alert as he scrutinized the forbidding form and features of the new-comer.
“Welcome, thrice welcome, Master Peter Rainham,” cried Brilliana. “You have made good speed.”