’It were a poor compliment to Lord Malcolm to name him in the same day with Sir Boemond of Burgundy,’ said Esclairmonde; ’but, as I said, it is not the person that withholds me, but the fact that I am not free.’

‘I do not ask you to love or accept the poor boy as yet,’ said James; ’I leave that for the time when I shall bring him back to you, with the qualities grown which you have awakened.  At least, I can bear him the tidings that it is not your feelings, but your scruples that are against him.’

‘Sir King,’ said Esclairmonde, gravely, ’I question not your judgment in turning your kinsman and subject to the secular life; but if you lead him by false hopes, of which I am the object, I tell you plainly that you are deluding him; and if any evil come thereof, be it on your own head.’

She moved away, with a bend of her graceful neck, and James stood with a slight smile curving his lip.  ‘By my troth,’ he said to himself, ’a lordly lady!  She knows her own vocation.  She is one to command scores of holy maids, and have all the abbots and priors round at her beck, instead of one poor man.  Rather Malcolm than I!  But he is the very stuff that loves to have such a woman to rule him; and if she wed at all, he is the very man for her!  I’ll not give it up!  Love is the way to make a man of him, whether successful or not, and she may change her mind, since she is not yet on the roll of saints.  If I could get a word with her father confessor, and show him how much it would be for the interest of the Church in Scotland to get such a woman there, it would be the surest way of coming at her.  Were she once in Scotland, my pretty one would have a stay and helper!  But all must rest till after the campaign.’

James therefore told Malcolm so much as that he had spoken to his lady-love for him, and that she had avowed that it was not himself, but her own vows, that was the obstacle.

Malcolm crimsoned with joy as well as confusion; and the King proceeded:  ’For the vows’—­he shrugged his shoulders—­’we knew there is a remedy!  Meantime, Malcolm, be you a man, win your spurs, and show yourself worth overcoming something for!’

Malcolm smiled and brightened, holding his head high and joyously, and handling his sword.  Then came the misgiving—­’But Lilias, Sir, and Patrick Drummond.’

’We will provide for them, boy.  You know Drummond is bent on carving his own fortune rather than taking yours, and that your sister only longs to see you a gallant knight.’

It was true, but Malcolm sighed.

‘You have not spoken to the lady yourself?’ asked the King.

‘No, Sir.  Oh, how can I?’ faltered Malcolm, shamefaced and frightened.

James laughed.  ‘Let that be as the mood takes you, or occasion serves,’ he said, wondering whether the lad’s almost abject awkwardness and shame would be likely to create the pity akin to love or to contempt, and deciding that it must be left to chance.