since then neither the enfeoffment nor the lady, but only excuses, Sire Philippe.'
With eloquence the Frenchman touched upon the emergencies to which the public weal so often drives men of high station, and upon his private grief over the necessity—unavoidable, alas!—of returning a hard answer before the council; and become so voluble that Sire Edward merely laughed, in that big-lunged and disconcerting way of his, and afterward lodged for a week at Mezelais, nominally passing by his lesser title of Earl of Aquitaine, and as his own ambassador.
And negotiations became more swift of foot, since a man serves himself with zeal. In addition, the French lords could make nothing of a politician so thick-witted that he replied to every consideration of expediency with a parrot-like reiteration of the trivial circumstance that already the bargain was signed and sworn to; and, in consequence, while daily they fumed over his stupidity, daily he gained his point. During this period he was, upon one pretext or another, very largely in the company of his affianced wife, Dame Blanch.
This lady, I must tell you, was the handsomest of her day; there could nowhere be found a creature more agreeable to every sense; and she compelled the eye, it is recorded, not gently but in a superb fashion. And Sire Edward, who, till this, had loved her merely by report, and, in accordance with the high custom of old, through many perusals of her portrait, now appeared besotted. He was an aging man, near sixty; huge and fair he was, with a crisp beard, and stalwart as a tower; and the better-read at Mezelais likened the couple to Sieur Hercules at the feet of Queen Omphale when they saw the two so much together.
The ensuing Wednesday the court hunted and slew a stag of ten in the woods of Ermenoueil, which stand thick about the chateau; and upon that day these two had dined at Rigon the forester's hut, in company with Dame Meregrett, the French King's younger sister. She sat a little apart from the betrothed, and stared through the hut's one window. We know nowadays it was not merely the trees she considered.
Dame Blanch, it seemed, was undisposed to mirth. 'For we have slain the stag, beau sire,' she said, 'and have made of his death a brave diversion. To-day we have had our sport of death,—and presently the gay years wind past us, as our cavalcade came toward the stag, and God's incurious angel slays us, much as we slew the stag. And we will not understand, and we will wonder, as the stag did, in helpless wonder. And Death will have his sport of us, as in atonement.' Here her big eyes shone, as the sun glints upon a sand-bottomed pool. 'Ohe, I have known such happiness of late, beau sire, that I am hideously afraid to die.' And again the heavily fringed eyelids lifted, and within the moment sank contentedly.
For the King had murmured 'Happiness!' and his glance was rapacious.
'But I am discourteous,' Blanch said, 'to prate of death thus drearily. Let us flout him, then, with some gay song.' And toward Sire Edward she handed Rigon's lute.
The King accepted it. 'Death is not reasonably mocked,' Sire Edward said, 'since in the end he conquers, and of the very lips that gibed at him remains but a little dust. Nay, rather should I who already stand beneath a lifted sword make for my immediate conqueror a Sirvente, which is the Song of Service.'
Sang Sire Edward:
'True, O God!' murmured the tiny woman, who sat beside the window yonder. And Dame Meregrett rose and in silence passed from the room.
The two started, and laughed in common, and afterward paid little heed to her outgoing. For Sire Edward had put aside the lute and sat now regarding the Princess. His big left hand propped the bearded chin; his grave countenance was flushed, and his intent eyes shone under their shaggy brows, very steadily, like the tapers before an altar.
And, irresolutely, Dame Blanch plucked at her gown; then rearranged a fold of it, and with composure awaited the ensuing action, afraid at bottom, but not at all ill-pleased; and always she looked downward.
The King said: 'Never before were we two alone, madame. Fate is very gracious to me this morning.'
'Fate,' the lady considered, 'has never denied much to the Hammer of the Scots.'
'She has denied me nothing,' he sadly said, 'save the one thing that makes this business of living seem a rational proceeding. Fame and power and wealth she has accorded me, no doubt, but never the common joys of life. And, look you, my Princess, I am of aging person now. During some thirty years I have ruled England according to my interpretation of God's will as it was anciently made manifest by the holy Evangelists; and during that period I have ruled England not without odd by-ends of commendation: yet behold, to-day I forget the world-applauded, excellent King Edward, and remember only Edward Plantagenet—hot-blooded and desirous man!—of whom that much-commended king has made a prisoner all these years.'
'It is the duty of exalted persons,' Blanch unsteadily said, 'to put aside such private inclinations as their breasts may harbor—'
He said, 'I have done what I might for the happiness of every Englishman within my realm saving only Edward Plantagenet; and now I think his turn to be at hand.' Then the man kept silence; and his hot appraisal daunted her.
'Lord,' she presently faltered, 'lord, in sober verity Love cannot extend his laws between husband and wife, since the gifts of love are voluntary, and husband and wife are but the slaves of duty—'
'Troubadourish nonsense!' Sire Edward said; 'yet it is true that the gifts of love are voluntary. And therefore— Ha, most beautiful, what have you and I to do with all this chaffering over Guienne?' The two stood very close to each other now.
Blanch said, 'It is a high matter—' Then on a sudden the full-veined girl was aglow with passion. 'It is a trivial matter.' He took her in his arms, since already her cheeks flared in scarlet anticipation of the event.
And thus holding her, he wooed the girl tempestuously. Here, indeed, was Sieur Hercules enslaved, burned by a fiercer fire than that of Nessus, and the huge bulk of the unconquerable visibly shaken by his adoration. In the disordered tapestry of verbiage, passion-flapped as a flag is by the wind, she presently beheld herself prefigured by Balkis, the Judean's lure, and by the Princess of Cyprus (in Aristotle's time), and by Nicolette, the King's daughter of Carthage—since the first flush of morning was as a rush-light before her resplendency, the man swore; and in
