nfamously trapped, and instead I find an alert spider, snug in his
cunning web, and patiently waiting until the gnats of France fly near
enough. Eh, the greater fool was I to waste my labor on the shrewd and
evil thing which has no more need of me than I of it! And now let me
go hence, sire, and unmolested, for the sake of chivalry. Could I have
come to you but as to the brave man I had dreamed of, I had come
through the murkiest lane of hell; as the more artful knave, as the
more judicious trickster"--and here she thrust him from her--"I spit
upon you. Now let me go hence."

He took her in his brawny arms. "Fit mate for me," he said. "Little
vixen, had you done otherwise I had devoted you to the devil."

Anon, still grasping her, and victoriously lifting Dame Meregrett, so
that her feet swung quite clear of the floor, Sire Edward said: "Look
you, in my time I have played against Fate for considerable stakes--for
fortresses, and towns, and strong citadels, and for kingdoms even. And
it was only to-night I perceived that the one stake worth playing for
is love. It were easy enough to get you for my wife; but I want more
than that.... Pschutt! I know well enough how women have these
notions: and carefully I weighed the issue--Meregrett and Guienne to
boot? or Meregrett and Meregrett's love to boot?--and thus the final
destination of my captives was but the courtyard of Mezelais, in order
I might come to you with hands--well! not intolerably soiled."

"Oh, now I love you!" she cried, a-thrill with disappointment. "Yet
you have done wrong, for Guienne is a king's ransom."

He smiled whimsically, and presently one arm swept beneath her knees,
so that presently he held her as one dandles a baby; and presently his
stiff and yellow beard caressed her burning cheek. Masterfully he
said: "Then let it serve as such and ransom for a king his glad and
common manhood. Ah, m'amye, I am both very wise and abominably
selfish. And in either capacity it appears expedient that I leave
France without any unwholesome delay. More lately--he, already I have
within my pocket the Pope's dispensation permitting me to marry the
sister of the King of France, so that I dare to hope."

Very shyly Dame Meregrett lifted her little mouth toward his hot and
bearded lips. "Patience," she said, "is a virtue; and daring is a
virtue; and hope, too, is a virtue: and otherwise, beau sire, I would
not live."

And in consequence, after a de