m. By his own act she was denied. He
had said Yea, when Nay had been the voice of heart and head, of honour
and love and reason at once; and now (close up against her) he knew that
he was to forbid his own grant. He knew it, I say; but until he saw her
there he had not clearly known it. Go on, I will show you the deeps of
the man for good or bad. Not lust of flesh, but of dominion, ravened in
him. This woman, this Jehane Saint-Pol, this hot-haired slip of a girl
was his. The leopard had laid his paw upon her shoulder, the mark was
still there; he could not suffer any other beast of the forest to touch
that which he had printed with his own mark, for himself.

Twi-form is the leopard; twi-natured was Richard of Anjou, dog and cat.
Now here was all cat. Not the wolf's lust, but the lion's jealous rage
spurred him to the act. He could see this beautiful thing of flesh
without any longing to lick or tear; he could have seen the frail soul
of it, but half-born, sink back into the earth out of sight; he could
have killed Jehane or made her as his mother to him. But he could not
see one other get that which was his. His by all heaven she was. When
Gurdun squared himself and puffed his cheeks, and stood up; when
Jehane, touched by Saint-Pol on the shoulder, shivered and left staring,
and stood up in turn, swaying a little, and held out her thin hand; when
the priest had the ring on his book, and the two hands, the red and the
white, trembled to the touch--Richard rose from his knee and stole
forward with his long, soft, crouching stride.

So softly he trod that the priest, old and blear-eyed as he was, saw him
first: the others had heard nothing. With Jehane's hand in his own, the
priest stopped and blinked. Who was this prowler, afoot when all else
were on their knees? His jaw dropped; you saw that he was toothless.
Inarticulate sounds, crackling and dry, came from his throat. Richard
had stopped too, tense, quivering for a spring. The priest gave a
prodigious sniff, turned to his book, looked up again: the crouching man
was still there--but imminent. 'Wine of Jesus!' said the priest, and
dropped Jehane's hand. Then she turned. She gave a short cry; the whole
assembly started and huddled together as the mailed man made his spring.

It was done in a flash. From his crouched attitude he went, as it
seemed, at one bound. That same shock drove Gilles de Gurdun back among
his people, and the same found Jehane caged in a hoop of st