In May he came to her.  A truce was patched up, and French and English met amicably in a great plain near Meulan.  A square space was staked out and on three sides boarded in, the fourth side being the river Seine.  This enclosure the Queen-Regent, Jehan of Burgundy, and Katharine entered from the French side.  Simultaneously the English King appeared, accompanied by his brothers the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, and followed by the Earl of Warwick.  Katharine raised her eyes with I know not what lingering hope; but it was he, a young Zeus now, triumphant and uneager.  In his helmet in place of a plume he wore a fox-brush spangled with jewels.

These six entered the tent pitched for the conference—­the hanging of blue velvet embroidered with fleurs-de-lys of gold blurred before the girl’s eyes,—­and there the Earl of Warwick embarked upon a sea of rhetoric.  His French was indifferent, his periods were interminable, and his demands exorbitant; in brief, the King of England wanted Katharine and most of France, with a reversion at the French King’s death of the entire kingdom.  Meanwhile Sire Henry sat in silence, his eyes glowing.

“I have come,” he said, under cover of Warwick’s oratory—­“I have come again, my lady.”

Katharine’s gaze flickered over him.  “Liar!” she said, very softly.  “Has God no thunders remaining in His armory that this vile thief still goes unblasted?  Would you steal love as well as kingdoms?”

His ruddy face was now white.  “I love you, Katharine.”

“Yes,” she answered, “for I am your pretext.  I can well believe, messire, that you love your pretext for theft and murder.”

Neither spoke after this, and presently the Earl of Warwick having come to his peroration, the matter was adjourned till the next day.  The party separated.  It was not long before Katharine had informed her mother that, God willing, she would never again look upon the King of England’s face uncoffined.  Isabeau found her a madwoman.  The girl swept opposition before her with gusts of demoniacal fury, wept, shrieked, tore at her hair, and eventually fell into a sort of epileptic seizure; between rage and terror she became a horrid, frenzied beast.  I do not dwell upon this, for it is not a condition in which the comeliest maid shows to advantage.  But, for the Valois, insanity always lurked at the next corner, and they knew it; to save the girl’s reason the Queen was forced to break off all discussion of the match.  Accordingly, the Duke of Burgundy went next day to the conference alone.  Jehan began with “ifs,” and over these flimsy barriers Henry, already fretted by Katharine’s scorn, presently vaulted to a towering fury.

“Fair cousin,” the King said, after a deal of vehement bickering, “we wish you to know that we will have the daughter of your King, and that we will drive both him and you out of this kingdom.”

The Duke answered, not without spirit, “Sire, you are pleased to say so; but before you have succeeded in ousting my lord and me from this realm, I am of the opinion that you will be very heartily tired.”