The Queen-Mother sobbed.  Terrible punishment for a little pleasant sin!  Yet I doubt’—­she said, politic through all—­’yet I doubt my son, being a fierce lover, will have his way with thee.’

Jehane shook her head.  ‘No means,’ she said, drawing in her breath, ’no means, Madame.  I have his life to think of.’  Here, pitying herself, she turned away her face.  The Queen-Mother came suddenly and kissed her.  They cried together, Jehane and the flinty old shrew of Aquitaine.

A pact was made, and sealed with kisses, between these two women who loved King Richard, that Jehane should do her best to further the Navarrese match.  Circumstance was her friend in this pious robbery of herself:  Richard, who stood so deep engaged in honour to God Almighty, could get no money.

Busy as he was with one shift after another to redeem his credit, busy also pushing on his coronation, he yet continued to see his mistress most days, either walking with her in the garden of the nuns’ house where she lodged, or sitting by her within doors.  At these snatched moments there was a beautiful equality between them; the girl no longer subject to the man, the man more master of himself for being less master of her.  As often as not he sat on the floor at her feet while she worked at those age-long tapestries which her generation loved; leaning his head back to her knee, he would so lie and search her face, and wonder to himself what the world to come could have more fair to show than this calm treasurer of lovely flesh.  This was, at the time, her chief glory, that with all her riches—­fragrant allure, soft warmth, the delicacy, nice luxury of her every part, the glow, the tincture, the throbbing fire—­she could keep a strong hand upon herself; sway herself modestly; have so much and give so little; be so apt for a bridal, and yet without a sigh play the nun!  ’If she, being devirginate through me, can cry herself virgin again—­then cannot I, by the King of Heaven?’ This was Richard’s day-thought, a very mannish thought; for women do not consider their own beauties so closely, see no divinity in themselves, and find a man to be a glorious fool to think one of them more desirable than another.  He never spoke this thought, but worshipped her silently for the most part; and she, reading the homage of his upturned face, steeled herself against the sweet flattery, held her peace, and in her fierce proud mind made endless plots against his.

In silence their souls conversed upon a theme never mentioned between them.  His restless quest of her face taught him much, disposed him; she, with all the good guile of women to her hand, waited, judging the time.  Then one day as they sat together in a window she suddenly slipped away from his hand, dropped to her knees, and began to pray.

For a while he let her alone, finding the act as lovely as she.  But presently he stooped his face till it almost touched her cheek, and ‘Tell me thy prayer, dear heart!  Let me pray also!’ he whispered.