The foremost of the two was Sir Giles Mompesson, and his usually stern and sinister features had acquired a yet more inauspicious cast, from the deathlike paleness that bespread them, as well as from the fillet bound round his injured brow.  The other was an antiquated coxcomb, aping the airs and graces of a youthful gallant, attired in silks and velvets fashioned in the newest French mode, and exhaling a mingled perfume of civet, musk, and ambergris; and in him Aveline recognised the amorous old dotard, who had stared at her so offensively during the visit she had been forced to make to the extortioner.

Sir Francis’s deportment was not a whit less impertinent or objectionable now than heretofore.  After making a profound salutation to Aveline, which he thought was executed in the most courtly style, and with consummate grace, he observed in a loud whisper to his partner, “’Fore heaven! a matchless creature! a divinity!  Introduce me in due form, Sir Giles.”

“Suffer me to make known to you Sir Francis Mitchell, fair mistress,” said Mompesson.  “He is so ravished by your charms that he can neither eat, drink, nor sleep; and he professes to me, his friend and partner, that he must die outright, unless you take pity on him.  Is it not so, Sir Francis?  Nay, plead your own cause, man.  You will do it better than I, who am little accustomed to tune my voice to the ear of beauty.”

During this speech, the old usurer conducted himself in a manner that, under other circumstances, must have moved Aveline’s mirth; but it now only excited her disgust and indignation.  Sighing, groaning placing his hand upon his heart, languishingly regarding her, and turning up his eyes till the whites alone were visible, he ended by throwing himself at her feet, seizing her hand, and attempting to cover it with kisses.

“Deign to listen to me, peerless and adorable damsel!” he cried in the most impassioned accents he could command, though he wheezed terribly all the while, and was ever and anon interrupted by a fit of coughing.  “Incline your ear to me, I beseech you.  Sir Giles has in no respect exaggerated my sad condition.  Ever since I beheld you I have been able to do nothing else than—­ough! ough!—­dwell upon your surpassing attractions.  Day and night your lovely image has been constantly before me.  You have driven sleep from my eyelids, and rest from my—­(ough! ough!)—­frame.  Your lustrous eyes have lighted up such a fire in my breast as can never be extinguished, unless—­(ough! ough! ough!)—­plague take this cough!  I owe it to you, fair mistress of my heart, as well as my other torments.  But as I was about to say, the raging flame you have kindled in my breast will utterly consume me, unless—­(ough! ough! ough!)”

Here he was well-nigh choked, and Sir Giles had to come to his assistance.

“What my worthy friend and partner would declare, if his cough permitted him, fair Mistress Aveline,” urged the extortioner, “is that he places his life and fortune at your disposal.  His desires are all centred in you, and it rests with you to make him the happiest or most miserable of mankind.  Speak I not your sentiments, Sir Francis?”