“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 fate 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, you know that we are already betrothed, and, 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.  “It is a trivial matter.”  He took her in his arms, since already her cheeks flared in scarlet anticipation of the event.

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 a disordered tapestry of verbiage, aflap in winds of passion, she presently beheld herself prefigured by Balkis, the Judean’s lure, and by that Princess of Cyprus who reigned in Aristotle’s time, and by Nicolete, 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 conclusion, he likened her to a modern Countess of Tripolis, for love of whom he, like Rudel, had cleft the seas, and losing whom he must inevitably die as did Rudel.  Sire Edward snapped his fingers now over any consideration of Guienne.  He would conquer for her all Muscovy and all Cataia, too, if she desired mere acreage.  Meanwhile he wanted her, and his hard and savage passion beat down opposition as if with a bludgeon.