"What, another Master Holyday?" said Millicent, in an ironical manner suited to her perverse mood.
"The true one," replied her mother; "that rogue cozened him as he did us. Well, 'twas a lesson, Master Holyday, not to prate of your affairs to strangers."
"The rogue shall pay for giving me the lesson," ventured Holyday, bracing himself to play his part.
Mistress Millicent looked as if she doubted this.
"I know he is a much-vaunted swordman," added Holyday, catching her expression; "but I have some acquaintance with steel weapons myself."
His small, unnatural voice was at such variance with his words, that Millicent looked amused as well as doubting. He felt he was not getting on well, and was for sinking into despair; but the thought of Ravenshaw waiting behind the cross, hand on hilt, acted as a goad, and raised the wretched poet to a desperate alertness.
Master Etheridge came in, holding out his hollowed palm. At sight of its contents Mistress Millicent turned pale, and caught the back of a chair. Sir Peregrine bent his eyes over them gloatingly, and took them up in his lean fingers.
"The wedding-ring, sooth," he said. "Good lack, 'twas speedy work, father. But which of the two is it?"
"Which you choose," replied the goldsmith. "They are like as twins. I had the two made to the same measurement; 'tis so small, one of them will be a pretty thing to keep in the shop for show. Belike there may be another bride's finger in London 'twill fit."