AUSTIN. Hush! He reddens.

GUENDOLEN. Mark him, Austin; that's true love! Ours must begin again.

TRESHAM. We'll sit, my lord. Ever with best desert goes diffidence. I may speak plainly nor be misconceived That I am wholly satisfied with you On this occasion, when a falcon's eye Were dull compared with mine to search out faults, Is somewhat. Mildred's hand is hers to give Or to refuse.

MERTOUN. But you, you grant my suit? I have your word if hers?

TRESHAM. My best of words If hers encourage you. I trust it will. Have you seen Lady Mildred, by the way?

MERTOUN. I... I... our two demesnes, remember, touch, I have beer used to wander carelessly After my stricken game: the heron roused Deep in my woods, has trailed its broken wing Thro' thicks and glades a mile in yours,--or else Some eyass ill-reclaimed has taken flight And lured me after her from tree to tree, I marked not whither. I have come upon The lady's wondrous beauty unaware, And--and then... I have seen her.

GUENDOLEN [aside to AUSTIN]. Note that mode Of faltering out that, when a lady passed, He, having eyes, did see her! You had said-- "On such a day I scanned her, head to foot; Observed a red, where red should not have been, Outside her elbow; but was pleased enough Upon the whole." Let such irreverent talk Be lessoned for the future!

TRESHAM. What's to say May be said briefly. She has never known A mother's care; I stand for father too. Her beauty is not strange to you, it seems-- You cannot know the good and tender heart, Its girl's trust and its woman's constancy, How pure yet passionate, how calm yet kind, How grave yet joyous, how reserved yet free As light where friends are--how imbued with lore The world most prizes, yet the simplest, yet The... one might know I talked of Mildred--thus We brothers talk!