This done, and means taken for sure despatch, he sends for the virgin in question, and embracing her with one arm, holds her close to his knee.

‘My child,’ he says, ’you are to be wedded to the greatest prince now on life, the pattern of chivalry, the mirror of manly beauty, heir to a great throne.  What do you say to this?’

The virgin kept her eyes down; a very faint flush of rose troubled her cheek.

‘I am in your hands, sire,’ she said, whereupon Don Sancho enfolded her.

‘You are in my arms, dear child,’ he testified.  ’Your lord will be King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou, Poictou, and Maine, and lord of some island in the western sea whose name I have forgotten.  He is also the subject of prophecy, which (as the Arabians know very well) declares that he will rule such an empire as Alexander never saw, nor the mighty Charles dreamed of.  Does this please you, my child?’

‘He is a very great lord,’ said Berengere, ’and will be a great king.  I hope to serve him faithfully.’

‘By Saint James, and so you shall!’ cried the happy Don Sancho.  ’Go, my child, and say your prayers.  You will have something to pray about at last.’

She was the only daughter he had left, exorbitantly loved; a little creature too much brocaded to move, cold as snow, pious as a virgin enclosed, with small regular features like a fairy queen’s.  She had a narrow mind, and small heart for meeting tribulation, which, indeed, she seemed never likely to know.  Sometimes, being in her robes of state, crusted with gems, crowned, coifed, ringed, she looked like nothing so much as a stiff doll-goddess set in glass over an altar.  It was thus she showed her best, when with fixed eyes and a frigid smile she stood above the court, an unapproachable glittering star set in the clear sky of a night to give men hopes of an ordered heaven.  It was thus Bertran de Born had seen her, when for a time his hot and wrong heart was at rest, and he could look on a creature of this world without desire to mar it.  Half in mockery, half in love, he called her Frozen Heart.  Later on, you remember, he called Jehane Bel Vezer.  He was the nicknamer of Europe in his day.

So now, or almost so, he saw her new come from her father’s side—­a little flushed, but very much the great small lady, ma dame Berengere of Navarre.

‘The sun shines upon my Frozen Heart,’ said Bertran.  She gave him her hand to kiss.

‘No heart of yours am I, Bertran,’ she said; ‘but chosen for a king.’

‘A king, lady!  Whom then?’

She answered, ‘A king to be.  My lord Richard of Poictou.’

He clacked his tongue on his palate, and bolted this pill as best he could.  Bad was best.  He saw himself made newly so great a fool that he dared not think of it.  If he had known at that time of Richard’s dealing with Jehane Saint-Pol, you may be sure he would have squirted some venom.  But he knew nothing at all about it; and as to the other affair, even he dared not speak.