Halfman went to the nigh door, and, opening it, summoned with beckoning finger its tenant to come forth. Master Hungerford emerged radiant. For a moment neither squire saw the other. Then Master Rainham, looking away from Brilliana, saw Master Hungerford; and Master Hungerford, looking away from Halfman, saw Master Rainham.
To those who watched the comedy the silence was intense, and throbbing with possibilities as summer air throbs with heat. Brilliana heard Master Rainham say, “What a devil, Master Hungerford,” and Halfman, for his part, averred later that Master Hungerford, too, greeted his neighbor’s presence with an oath. The spectators wondered what would happen: it was plain as noon that each squire for an instant believed that the other had discovered larceny and had posted to avenge it. But while each man knew of his own guilt neither could guess or did guess at the other’s theft, and neither reading anger in the other’s visage, each concluded that the meeting was a piece of chance, and each resolved to make the best of it, laughing heartily in his sleeve at the other’s catastrophe. So “Good-morrow, neighbor,” nodded Master Paul, and “Good-day, good-day,” responded Master Peter, and Brilliana thought her bodice would burst with her effort to keep her appreciation a prisoner.
“Why, sirs,” she cried, “this is a good seeing, a pair of neighbors under my roof.”
“What does this fellow here?” Master Paul asked behind his hand of Halfman, who answered, very coolly,
“He comes to pay court to our lady.”
At the same moment, beneath his breath, Master Peter was questioning Brilliana, “Why is that disloyal rogue here?” Brilliana answered, with a pretty toss of the head:
“Would you ever believe it? He came to assure me of his devotion to me and his zeal for his Majesty.”
Master Peter, in wrath, looked more porcine than ever.
“The lying knave,” he grunted. “What are his words to my deeds?”