"I was afraid. Never in my life have I been afraid before to-day. But I
was afraid of this terrible and fair and righteous man. I saw all hope
of you vanish, all hope of Sicily--in effect, I lied as a cornered beast
spits out his venom."
"I know," she answered. "Give me water, Etienne." She washed and bound
the Prince's head with a vinegar-soaked napkin. Ellinor sat upon the
floor, the big man's head upon her knee. "He will not die of this, for
he is of strong person. Look you, Messire de Gâtinais, you and I are not
strong. We are so fashioned that we can enjoy only the pleasant things
of life. But this man can enjoy--enjoy, mark you--the commission of any
act, however distasteful, if he think it to be his duty. There is the
difference. I cannot fathom him. But it is now necessary that I become
all which he loves--since he loves it,--and that I be in thought and
deed all which he desires. For I have heard the Tenson through."
"You love him!" said de Gâtinais.
She glanced upward with a pitiable smile. "No, it is you whom I love, my
Etienne. You cannot understand how at this very moment every fibre of
me--heart, soul, and body--may be longing just to comfort you, and to
give you all which you desire, my Etienne, and to make you happy, my
handsome Etienne, at however dear a cost. No; you will never understand
that. And since you may not understand, I merely bid you go and leave me
with my husband."
And then there fell between these two an infinite silence.
"Listen," de Gâtinais said; "grant me some little credit for what I do.
You are alone; the man is powerless. My fellows are within call. A word
secures the Prince's death; a word gets me you and Sicily. And I do not
speak that word, for you are my lady as well as his, and your will is my
one law."
But there was no mercy in the girl, no more for him than for herself.
The big head lay upon her breast; she caressed the gross hair of it ever
so lightly. "These are tinsel oaths," she crooned, as if rapt with
incurious content; "these are the old empty protestations of all you
strutting poets. A word gets you what you desire! Then why do you not
speak that word? Why do you not speak many words, and become again as
eloquent and as magnificent as you were when you contrived that adultery
about which you were just now telling my husband?"
De Gâtinais raised clenched hands. "I am shamed," he said; and then he
said, "It is just."
He left the room and presently rode away with his men. I say that, here
at last, he had done a knightly deed, but she thought little of it,
never raised her head as the troop clattered from Mauléon, with a
lessening beat which lapsed now into the blunders of an aging fly who
doddered about the window yonder.
She stayed thus, motionless, her meditations adrift in the future; and
that which she foreread left her not all sorry nor profoundly glad, for
living seemed by this, though scarcely the merry and colorful business
which she had esteemed it, yet immeasurably the more worth while.