"Doubtless, my lord," the lad assented, striving to jest and have done; "for all flesh is frail, and as the flesh of woman is frailer than that of man, so is it, as I remember to have read, the more easily entrapped by the gross snares of the devil, as was over-well proved by the serpent's beguiling deceit of Eve at the beginning."
"Yet, Master Mervale," pursued the marquis, equably, but without smiling, "there be lovers in the world that have eyes?"
"There also be women in the world, Master Mervale," Lord Falmouth suggested, with a deeper gravity, "that are but the handsome sepulchres of iniquity,--ay, and for the major part of women, those miracles which are their bodies, compact of white and gold and sprightly color though they be, serve as the lovely cerements of corruption."
"Doubtless, my lord. The devil, as they say, is homelier with that sex."
"There also be swords in the world, Master Mervale?" purred the marquis. He touched his own sword as he spoke.
"Now, swords have at least three uses, Master Mervale," Falmouth continued. "With a sword one may pick a cork from a bottle; with a sword one may toast cheese about the Twelfth Night fire; and with a sword one may spit a man, Master Mervale,--ay, even an ambling, pink-faced, lisping lad that cannot boo at a goose, Master Mervale. I have no inclination, Master Mervale, just now, for either wine or toasted cheese."
"I do not understand you, my lord," said the boy, in a thin voice.
"Indeed, I think we understand each other perfectly," said the marquis. "For I have been very frank with you, and I have watched you from behind this bush."
The boy raised his hand as though to speak.
"Look you, Master Mervale," the marquis argued, "you and my lord of Pevensey and I be brave fellows; we need a wide world to bustle in. Now, the thought has come to me that this small planet of ours is scarcely commodious enough for all three. There be purgatory and Heaven, and yet another place, Master Mervale; why, then, crowd one another?"
"My lord," said the boy, dully, "I do not understand you."
"Holy Gregory!" scoffed the marquis; "surely my meaning is plain enough! it is to kill you first, and my lord of Pevensey afterward! Y'are phoenixes, Master Mervale, Arabian birds! Y'are too good for this world. Longaville is not fit to be trodden under your feet; and therefore it is my intention that you leave Longaville feet first. Draw, Master Mervale!" cried the marquis, his light hair falling about his flushed, handsome face as he laughed joyously, and flashed his sword in the spring sunshine.