those who seek after women are
always ready to present.

He was not rebuffed, for if he was willing to attack she was not the
less ready to surrender, and prepared to give him even more than he
dared to ask; for she found in him such chivalry, prowess, and virtue
that she quite forgot her old lover, who at that time suspected nothing.

The good merchant was much pleased with his new lady, and they so loved
each other, and their wills, desires, and thoughts so agreed, that it
was as though they had but a single heart between them. They could
not be content until they were living together, so one night the wench
packed up all her belongings and went to the merchant's house, thus
abandoning her old lover, her landlord and his wife, and a number of
other good people to whose care she had been recommended.

She was not a fool, and as soon as she found herself well lodged,
she told the merchant she was pregnant, at which he was very joyful,
believing that he was the cause; and in about seven months the wench
brought forth a fine boy, and the adoptive father was very fond both of
the child and its mother.

A certain time afterwards the gentleman returned from the war, and came
to Bruges, and as soon as he decently could, took his way to the house
where he had left his mistress, and asked news of her from those whom he
had charged to lodge her and clothe her, and aid her in her confinement.

"What!" they said. "Do you not know? Have you not had the letters which
were written to you?"

"No, by my oath," said he. "What has happened?'

"Holy Mary!" they replied, "you have good reason to ask. You had not
been gone more than a month when she packed up her combs and mirrors
and betook herself to the house of a certain merchant, who is greatly
attached to her. And, in fact, she has there been brought to bed of a
fine boy. The merchant has had the child christened, and believes it to
be his own."

"By St. John! that is something new," said the gentleman, "but, since
she is that sort of a woman, she may go to the devil. The merchant may
have her and keep her, but as for the child I am sure it is mine, and I
want it."

Thereupon he went and knocked loudly at the door of the merchant's
house. By chance, the lady was at home and opened the door, and when
she recognised the lover she had deserted, they were both astonished.
Nevertheless, he asked her how she came in that place, and she replied
that Fortune had brought her there.