OCTAVIO.
Is that your last resolve?

BUTLER.
It is.

OCTAVIO.
Nay, but bethink you, Colonel Butler.
As yet you have time. Within my faithful breast
That rashly uttered word remains interred.
Recall it, Butler! choose a better party;
You have not chosen the right one.

BUTLER (going).
Any other
Commands for me, lieutenant-general?

OCTAVIO.
See your white hairs; recall that word!

BUTLER.
Farewell!

OCTAVIO.
What! Would you draw this good and gallant sword
In such a cause? Into a curse would you
Transform the gratitude which you have earned
By forty years' fidelity from Austria?

BUTLER (laughing with bitterness).
Gratitude from the House of Austria!

[He is going.

OCTAVIO (permits him to go as far as the door, then calls after him).
Butler!

BUTLER.
What wish you?

OCTAVIO.
How was't with the count?

BUTLER.
Count? what?

OCTAVIO (coldly).
The title that you wished, I mean.

BUTLER (starts in sudden passion).
Hell and damnation!

OCTAVIO (coldly).
You petitioned for it--
And your petition was repelled--was it so?

BUTLER.
Your insolent scoff shall not go by unpunished.
Draw!

OCTAVIO.
Nay! your sword to its sheath! and tell me calmly
How all that happened. I will not refuse you
Your satisfaction afterwards. Calmly, Butler!

BUTLER.
Be the whole world acquainted with the weakness
For which I never can forgive myself,
Lieutenant-general! Yes; I have ambition.
Ne'er was I able to endure contempt.
It stung me to the quick that birth and title
Should have more weight than merit has in the army.
I would fain not be meaner than my equal,
So in an evil hour I let myself
Be tempted to that measure. It was folly!
But yet so hard a penance it deserved not.
It might have been refused; but wherefore barb
And venom the refusal with contempt?
Why dash to earth and crush with heaviest scorn
The gray-haired man, the faithful veteran?
Why to the baseness of his parentage
Refer him with such cruel roughness, only
Because he had a weak hour and forgot himself?
But nature gives a sting e'en to the worm
Which wanton power treads on in sport and insult.

OCTAVIO.
You must have been calumniated. Guess you
The enemy who did you this ill service?

BUTLER.
Be't who it will--a most low-hearted scoundrel!
Some vile court-minion must it be, some Spaniard;
Some young squire of some ancient fa