."

"That is so. We come near to midsummer. Is there anything I can oblige
you in, sir?"

Joris asked the question because the manner of the young man struck him
as uneasy and constrained; and he thought, "Perhaps he has come to
borrow money." It was notorious that his Majesty's officers gambled, and
were often in very great need of it; and, although Joris had not any
intention of risking his gold, he thought it as well to bring out the
question, and have the refusal understood before unnecessary politeness
made it more difficult. He was not, therefore, astonished when Captain
Hyde answered,--

"Sir, you can indeed oblige me, and that in a matter of the greatest
moment."

"If money it be, Captain, at once I may tell you, that I borrow not, and
I lend not."

"Sir, it is not money--in particular."

"So?"

"It is your daughter Katherine."

Then Joris stood up, and looked steadily at the suitor. His large,
amiable face had become in a moment hard and stern; and the light in his
eyes was like the cold, sharp light that falls from drawn steel.

"My daughter is not for you to name. Sir, it is a wrong to her, if you
speak her name."

"By my honour, it is not! Though I come of as good family as any in
England, and may not unreasonably hope to inherit its earldom, I do
assure you, sir, I sue as humbly for your daughter's hand as if she were
a princess."

"Your family! Talk not of it. King nor kaiser do I count better men than
my own fore-goers. Like to like, that is what I say. Your wife seek,
Captain, among your own women."

"I protest that I love your daughter. I wish above all things to make
her my wife."

"Many things men desire, that they come not near to. My daughter is to
another man promised."

"Look you, Councillor, that would be monstrous. Your daughter loves me."

Joris turned white to the lips. "It is not the truth," he answered in a
slow, husky voice.

"By the sun in heaven, it is the truth! Ask her."

"Then a great scoundrel are you, unfit with honest men to talk. Ho! Yes,
your sword pull from its scabbard. Strike. To the heart strike me. Less
wicked would be the deed than the thing you have done."

"In faith, sir, 'tis no crime to win a woman's love."

"No crime it would be to take the guilders from my purse, if my consent
was to it. But into my house to come, and while warm was yet my welcome,
with my bread and wine in your lips, to take my gold, a shame and a
crime would be. My daughter