The scholar, meanwhile, paced up and down the courtyard to keep himself warm, nor indeed had he where to sit, or take shelter:  in this plight he bestowed many a curse upon the lady’s brother for his long tarrying, and never a sound did he hear but he thought that ’twas the lady opening the door.  But vain indeed were his hopes:  the lady, having solaced herself with her lover until hard upon midnight, then said to him:—­“How ratest thou our scholar, my soul? whether is the greater his wit, or the love I bear him, thinkst thou?  Will the cold, that, of my ordaining, he now suffers, banish from thy breast the suspicion which my light words the other day implanted there?” “Ay, indeed, heart of my body!” replied the lover, “well wot I now that even as thou art to me, my weal, my consolation, my bliss, so am I to thee.”  “So:”  quoth the lady, “then I must have full a thousand kisses from thee, to prove that thou sayst sooth.”  The lover’s answer was to strain her to his heart, and give her not merely a thousand but a hundred thousand kisses.  In such converse they dallied a while longer, and then:—­“Get we up, now,” quoth the lady, “that we may go see if ’tis quite spent, that fire, with which, as he wrote to me daily, this new lover of mine used to burn.”  So up they got and hied them to the lattice which they had used before, and peering out into the courtyard, saw the scholar dancing a hornpipe to the music that his own teeth made, a chattering for extremity of cold; nor had they ever seen it footed so nimbly and at such a pace.  Whereupon:—­“How sayst thou, sweet my hope?” quoth the lady.  “Know I not how to make men dance without the aid of either trumpet or cornemuse?” “Indeed thou dost my heart’s delight,” replied the lover.  Quoth then the lady:—­“I have a mind that we go down to the door.  Thou wilt keep quiet, and I will speak to him, and we shall hear what he says, which, peradventure, we shall find no less diverting than the sight of him.”

So they stole softly out of the chamber and down to the door, which leaving fast closed, the lady set her lips to a little hole that was there, and with a low voice called the scholar, who, hearing her call him, praised God, making too sure that he was to be admitted, and being come to the door, said:—­“Here am I, Madam; open for God’s sake; let me in, for I die of cold.”  “Oh! ay,” replied the lady, “I know thou hast a chill, and of course, there being a little snow about, ’tis mighty cold; but well I wot the nights are colder far at Paris.  I cannot let thee in as yet, because my accursed brother, that came to sup here this evening, is still with me; but he will soon take himself off, and then I will let thee in without a moment’s delay.  I have but now with no small difficulty given him the slip, to come and give thee heart that the waiting irk thee not.”  “Nay but, Madam,” replied the scholar, “for the love of God, I entreat you, let me in, that I may have a roof over my head, because for some time past there