Have at you! Boys, hurrah!
SCENE II.--A Saloon in the Mansion
Enter LORD TRESHAM, LORD MERTOUN, AUSTIN, and GUENDOLEN
TRESHAM. I welcome you, Lord Mertoun, yet once more,
To this ancestral roof of mine. Your name
--Noble among the noblest in itself,
Yet taking in your person, fame avers,
New price and lustre,--(as that gem you wear,
Transmitted from a hundred knightly breasts,
Fresh chased and set and fixed by its last lord,
Seems to re-kindle at the core)--your name
Would win you welcome!--
MERTOUN. Thanks!
TRESHAM. --But add to that,
The worthiness and grace and dignity
Of your proposal for uniting both
Our Houses even closer than respect
Unites them now--add these, and you must grant
One favour more, nor that the least,--to think
The welcome I should give;--'tis given! My lord,
My only brother, Austin: he's the king's.
Our cousin, Lady Guendolen--betrothed
To Austin: all are yours.
MERTOUN. I thank you--less
For the expressed commendings which your seal,
And only that, authenticates--forbids
My putting from me... to my heart I take
Your praise... but praise less claims my gratitude,
Than the indulgent insight it implies
Of what must needs be uppermost with one
Who comes, like me, with the bare leave to ask,
In weighed and measured unimpassioned words,
A gift, which, if as calmly 'tis denied,
He must withdraw, content upon his cheek,
Despair within his soul.
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