'Then, sir,' said Alice, 'suffer me, I pray, to go about my business, which is with this sick man, and not to hear compliments.'
He caught her hand and would have kissed it, but she drew it back.
'Nay, coy damsel,' he said; 'I swear I will not go without a kiss from thy lips! Kiss me, my dear.'
She started back, and I rushed between them. At that moment Madam herself appeared.
'What do you here?' she cried, catching his arm. 'What has this girl to do with you? Come away! Come away, and leave her in peace!'
'Go back to the house, woman!' he roared, breaking from her and flourishing his stick, so that I thought he was actually going to cudgel her. 'Go back, or it will be the worse for you. What? Am I master here or you? Go back, I say.'
Then a strange thing happened. She made no reply, but she turned upon him eyes so full of authority that she looked like a queen. He shifted his feet, made as if he would speak, and finally obeyed, and went out of the place to his own house with the greatest meekness, soberness, and quietness.
Presently Madam came back.
'I blame thee not, child,' she said. 'It is with him as I have told thee. When he begins to drink the Devil enters into him. Dost think he came here to see the sick man? No, but for thy fair eyes, inflamed with love as well as with drink. At such times no one can rule him but myself, and even I may fail. Keep snug, therefore. Perhaps he may forget thee again. But, indeed, I know not.'
She sighed, and left us.