"Mistress, you travel ill-protected," was Hal's speech of greeting.
"So my brother must have done when he met you last," was her prompt and defiant answer.
She let her horse drop into the gait of Hal's, and made no move to go from his side. The Puritan resumed his place at the head, and Francis, in order to be immediately behind his mistress, fell in with Kit Bottle. In this order the party of five proceeded northward, their horses walking.
"I did not harm your brother," reiterated Marryott, with a sigh.
"I perceive," she replied, ironically, "you are not the man that hurt my brother. You have made of yourself another man, by giving yourself another face! God 'a' mercy, the world is dull, indeed, an it is to be fooled with a scrape of a razor! You should have bought the silence of mine host yonder, methinks! And changed your company, altered your attitude, rid yourself of the stiffness from the wound my brother gave you, and washed your face of the welt my sword left! You have a good barber, Sir Valentine; he hath shaved a score of years from your face; he hath renewed your youth as if with water from that fountain men tell of, in America!"
"The loss of a long-worn beard indeed giveth some men a strange look of youth," assented Hal, as if humoring her spirit of bitter derision against himself. He was glad of her conviction that he could look youthful and yet be the middle-aged Sir Valentine.
"'Twas so in the case of an uncle of mine," she said, curtly, "which the more hindereth your imposing on me with a face of five and twenty."
"Five and twenty?" echoed Hal, involuntarily, surprised that he should appear even so old. But a moment's reflection told him that his age must be increased in appearance by the assumed stiffness of his attitude; by the frown and the labial rigidity he partly simulated, partly had acquired since yesterday; by the gauntness and pallor, both due to nervous tension and to lack of sleep and food. He was indeed an older man than the "Laertes" of two days ago, and not to be recognized as the same, for in the play he had worn a mustache and an air little like his present thoughtful mien.
"And I'll warrant this new face will serve you little to throw them off that are coming yonder," she went on, indicating the rearward road by a slight backward toss of the head.
"Certain riders from London, mean you?" said Hal. "By your leave, madam, sith you be in their secrets, I would fain know how far behind us they ride?"