ng that might be depended neither upon
holiness nor war so much as on the way each was used. Marriage with
Navarre might push Anjou across the mountains; the holy war might lift
it across the sea. Who was the 'yellow-haired King of the West' whom
they of the East foretold, if not her goodly son? Should God be thwarted
by a ----? She hesitated not for a word, but I hesitate.

If the Queen-Mother was afraid of anything in the world, it was of the
devil in the race she had mothered. It had thwarted her in their father,
but it cowed her in her sons. Most of all, I think, in Richard she
feared it, because Richard could be so cold. A flamy devil as in young
Henry, or a brimstone devil as in Geoffrey of Brittany, or a spitfire
devil as was John's--with these she could cope, her lord had had them
all. But in Richard she was shy of the bleak isolation, the
self-sufficing, the hard, chill core. She dreaded it, yet it drew her;
she was tempted to beat vainly at it for the passion's sake; and so in
this case she dared to do. She would cheerfully have killed the minion,
but she dared the King first.

When she opened to him the matter of Don Sancho's letter, none knew
better than Richard that the matter might have been good. Yet he would
have nothing to say to it. 'Madame,' his words were, 'this is an idle
letter, if not impertinent. Don Sancho knows very well that I am married
already.'

'Eh, sire! Eh, Richard!' said the Queen-Mother, 'then he knows more than
I.'

'I think not, Madame,' the King replied, 'since I have this moment
informed you.'

The Queen swallowed this; then said, 'This wife of yours, Richard, who
is not Duchess of Normandy, will not be Queen, I doubt?'

Richard's face grew haggard; for the moment he looked old. 'Such again
is the fact, Madame.'

'But--' the Queen began. Richard looked at her, so she ended there.

Afterwards she talked with the Archbishop of Canterbury, with the
Marshal, with Longchamp of Ely, and her son John. All these worthies
were pulling different ways, each trying to get the rope to himself.
With that rope John hoped to hang his brother yet. 'Dearest Madame,' he
said, 'Richard cannot marry in Navarre even if he were willing. Once he
has been betrothed, and has broken plight; once he saw his mistress
betrothed, and broke her plight. Now he is wedded, or says that he is.
Suppose that you get him to break this wedlock, will you give him
another woman to deceive? There is no more faithl