Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
And who but Lady Greensleeves?"
The point of the nickname lay in the fact that the pink silk gown which encased the large, shapely figure of the lady—a gown so cut as to reveal an ample surface of bust—was fitted with sleeves of light green.
"Christ! what caterwauling!" quoth Lady Greensleeves, with a smile, not ill-naturedly.
"'Tis not as bad as his laughing, at worst," said her gallant.
"What is amiss with his laughing?" spoke up the brunette, pressing Master Burney's hand the more tightly.
"Oh," replied the little gallant, "I find no fault that he laughs; but 'tis the manner of his laugh. If he but laughed like a Christian, I should not mind. But he laughs like a—like a—"
"Like a what?" persisted the brunette, defiantly.
"Like a pig," said Lady Greensleeves, placidly.
The brunette's eyes flashed at the fair woman, but the latter's amiable, half-smiling look disarmed wrath, or seemed to put it in the wrong, and so for a moment nobody spoke. Meanwhile Ravenshaw had made these swift deductions: Here was one gentleman prone to laugh at anything; there was another gentleman quick to take offence at that laughter if it was directed against his mistress; neither gentleman was afraid of the other, but both were afraid of Ravenshaw, whose name gave him a fine isolation, making it as hard for him to find adversaries in fight as in gaming; and each gentleman was adored by his lady. In a flash, the captain saw what might be made out of the situation.