“We waste time,” she cried, impatiently, “with any other business than your swift submission.”
Then as she saw him make an amiably protesting gesture she raged at him with a rising voice.
“Oh, if you knew how hard it is for me to stand in the same room with a renegade traitor you would, if such as you remember courtesy, be brief in your errand.”
The man showed no consciousness of the insult in her words and in her manner save than by a courteous inclination of the head and a few words of quiet speech.
“Much may be pardoned to so brave a lady.”
Brilliana struck her hand angrily upon the table once and again.
“For God’s sake do not praise me!” she almost screamed, “or I shall hate myself. Your errand, your errand, your errand!”
The enemy was provokingly imperturbable.
“You have a high spirit,” he said, “that must compel admiration from all. That is why I would persuade you to wisdom. I came hither from Cambridge by order of Colonel Cromwell.”
Brilliana’s lips tightened at the sound of the name which the envoy pronounced with so much reverence.