Of course, by the lady I knew he referred to the great Duchess Philippa, widow of Geoffrey, last Duke of Aquitaine.  But great duchess, widow, and all, Philippa was a woman, and young, and gay, and beautiful, and, by my faith, fashioned for me.

“What are his plans?” I demanded bluntly.

“They are deep and wide, Count Sainte-Maure—­too deep and wide for me to presume to imagine, much less know or discuss with you or any man.”

“Oh, I know big things are afoot and slimy worms squirming underground,” I said.

“They told me you were stubborn-necked, but I have obeyed commands.”

Martinelli arose to leave, and I arose with him.

“I said it was useless,” he went on.  “But the last chance to change your mind was accorded you.  My august master deals more fairly than fair.”

“Oh, well, I’ll think the matter over,” I said airily, as I bowed the priest to the door.

He stopped abruptly at the threshold.

“The time for thinking is past,” he said.  “It is decision I came for.”

“I will think the matter over,” I repeated, then added, as afterthought:  “If the lady’s plans do not accord with mine, then mayhap the plans of your master may fruit as he desires.  For remember, priest, he is no master of mine.”

“You do not know my master,” he said solemnly.

“Nor do I wish to know him,” I retorted.

And I listened to the lithe, light step of the little intriguing priest go down the creaking stairs.

Did I go into the minutiae of detail of all that I saw this half a day and half a night that I was Count Guillaume de Sainte-Maure, not ten books the size of this I am writing could contain the totality of the matter.  Much I shall skip; in fact, I shall skip almost all; for never yet have I heard of a condemned man being reprieved in order that he might complete his memoirs—­at least, not in California.

When I rode out in Paris that day it was the Paris of centuries agone.  The narrow streets were an unsanitary scandal of filth and slime.  But I must skip.  And skip I shall, all of the afternoon’s events, all of the ride outside the walls, of the grand fete given by Hugh de Meung, of the feasting and the drinking in which I took little part.  Only of the end of the adventure will I write, which begins with where I stood jesting with Philippa herself—­ah, dear God, she was wondrous beautiful.  A great lady—­ay, but before that, and after that, and always, a woman.

We laughed and jested lightly enough, as about us jostled the merry throng; but under our jesting was the deep earnestness of man and woman well advanced across the threshold of love and yet not too sure each of the other.  I shall not describe her.  She was small, exquisitely slender—­but there, I am describing her.  In brief, she was the one woman in the world for me, and little I recked the long arm of that gray old man in Rome could reach out half across Europe between my woman and me.