or I heard her voice singing gaily
from within. My heart beat quick, and I had above half a mind not to
enter. But she had seen us, and herself flung the door open wide. She
lodged on the ground floor; and, in obedience to her beckoning finger, I
entered a small room. Lodging was hard to be had in Dover now, and the
apartment served her (as the bed, carelessly covered with a curtain,
showed) for sleeping and living. I did not notice what became of Jonah,
but sat down, puzzled and awkward, in a crazy chair.

"What brings you here?" I blurted out, fixing my eyes on her, as she
stood opposite to me, smiling and swaying to and fro a little, with her
hands on her hips.

"Even what brings you. My business," she answered. "If you ask more, the
King's invitation. Does that grieve you, Simon?"

"No, madame," said I.

"A little, still a little, Simon? Be consoled! The King invited me, but
he hasn't come to see me. There lies my business. Why hasn't he come to
see me? I hear certain things, but my eyes, though they are counted good
if not large, can't pierce the walls of the Castle yonder, and my poor
feet aren't fit to pass its threshold."

"You needn't grieve for that," said I sullenly.

"Yet some things I know. As that a French lady is there. Of what
appearance is she, Simon?"

"She is very pretty, so far as I've looked at her."

"Ah, and you've a discriminating glance, haven't you? Will she stay
long?"

"They say Madame will be here for ten or fourteen days yet."

"And the French lady goes when Madame goes?"

"I don't know as to that."

"Why, nor I neither." She paused an instant. "You don't love Lord
Carford?" Her question came abruptly and unlooked for.

"I don't know your meaning." What concern had Carford with the French
lady?

"I think you are in the way to learn it. Love makes men quick, doesn't
it? Yes, since you ask (your eyes asked), why, I'll confess that I'm a
little sorry that you fall in love again. But that by the way. Simon,
neither do I love this French lady."

Had it not been for that morning's mood of mine, she would have won on
me again, and all my resolutions gone for naught. But she, not knowing
the working of my mind, took no pains to hide or to soften what repelled
me in her. I had seen it before, and yet loved; to her it would seem
strange that because a man saw, he should not love. I found myself sorry
for her, with a new and pitiful grief, but passion did not rise in me.
And concer