In the event, the Queen one day took to her barge, crossed the river, and confronted the girl who stood between England and Navarre.

Jehane, who was sitting with her ladies at needlework, was not so scared as they were.  Like the nymphs of the hunting Maid they all clustered about her, showing the Queen-Mother how tall she was and how nobly figured.  She flushed a little and breathed a little faster; but making her reverence she recovered herself, and stood with that curious look on her face, half surprise, half discontent, which made men call her the sulky fair.  So the Queen-Mother read the look.

‘No pouting with me, mistress,’ she said.  ’Send these women away.  It is with you I have to deal.’

‘Do we deal singly, Madame?’ said Jehane.  ’Then my ladies shall seek for yours the comforts of a discomfortable lodging.  I am sorry I have no better.’  The Queen-Mother nodded her people out of the room; so she and Jehane were left alone together.

‘Mistress,’ said the Queen-Mother, ’what is this between you and my son?  Playing and kissing are to be left below the degrees of a throne.  Let there be no more of it.  Do you dare, are you so hardy in the eyes, as to look up to a kingly seat, or measure your head for a king’s crown?’

Jehane had plenty of spirit, which a very little of this sort of talk would have fanned into a flame; but she had irony too.

‘Madame, alas!’ she said, with a hint of shrugging; ’if I have worn the Count’s cap I know the measure of my head.’

The Queen-Mother took her by the wrist ‘My girl,’ said she, ’you know very well that you are no Countess at all in my son’s right, but are what one of your nurture should not be.  And you shall understand that I am a plain-dealer in such affairs when they concern this realm, and have bled little heifers like you whiter than veal and as cold as most of the dead; and will do it again if need be.’

Jehane did not flinch nor turn her eyes from considering her whitening wrist.

‘Oh, Madame,’ she says, ’you will never bleed me; I am quite sure of that.  Alas, it would be well if you could, without offence.’

‘Why, whom should I offend then?’ the Queen said, sniffing—­’your ladyship?’

‘A greater,’ said Jehane.

‘You think the King would be offended?’

‘Madame,’ Jehane said, ‘he could be offended; but so would you be.’

The Queen-Mother tightened hold.  ‘I am not easily offended, mistress,’ she said, and smiled rather bleakly.

Jehane also smiled, but with patience, not trying to get free her wrist.

‘My blood would offend you.  You dare not bleed me.’

‘Death in life!’ the Queen cried, ’is there any but the King to stop me now?’

‘Madame,’ Jehane answered, ’there is the spoken word against you, the spirit of prophecy.’

Then her jailer saw that Jehane’s eyes were green, and very steady.  This checked her.