It was indeed Master Peter Rainham whom Tiffany now brought into the presence of her mistress, and left there standing and staring. Master Peter, eyed and appraised by the searching scrutiny of Halfman, resolved himself into a thick-set, boorish fellow, whose flying forehead, little, angry eyes, and assertive, yellow teeth made him, to Halfman’s mind, resemble nothing in the world so much as a boar’s head on an ale-house sign. Yet the fellow stood his ground sturdily enough, and stared at Brilliana with no sense of distress at his dirty homespun or his dirty hands.
“You sent for me?” he challenged. “Have you changed your mood? I am ever of the same mind, and will wed when you will.”
The wolf look leaped into Halfman’s eyes, and the loutish squire’s life was, all unawares, in the greatest peril it had ever fringed. But Brilliana, intent only on her purposes, beamed on her blunt suitor as if he had scattered flowers at her feet.
“You are a wonderful wooer,” she protested. “But whatever admiration of your person I may, without unbecoming effrontery, confess, I would have you to know, plain and square, from this moment, that I will hearken to none but a King’s man.”
The boor’s little eyes glinted and the boor’s rusty fingers rasped at his stubble chin as he answered emphatically:
“Then I am a King’s man, root and branch.”
But his face showed less loyal confidence at Brilliana’s next words.
“Then you must know his Majesty is in straits for ready money. Will you, who are reputed rich, come to his aid with a round sum?”
Master Peter showed his teeth in a snarl and flung up his hands.