"I have visited at your manor, Monsieur of Rozel. I have seen the state in which you live, your retainers, your men-at-arms, your farming-folk, and your sailormen. I know how your Queen receives you; how your honour is as stable as your fief."
He drew himself up again proudly. He could understand this speech.
"Your horses and your hounds I have seen," she added, "your men-servants and your maid-servants, your fields of corn, your orchards, and your larder. I have sometimes broken the Commandment and coveted them and envied you."
"Break the Commandment again, for the last time," he cried, delighted and boisterous. "Let us not waste words, lady. Let's kiss and have it over."
Her eyes flashed. "I coveted them and envied you; but then, I am but a vain girl at times, and vanity is easier to me than humbleness."
"Blood of man, but I cannot understand so various a creature!" he broke in, again puzzled.
"There is a little chapel in the dell beside your manor, Monsieur. If you will go there, and get upon your knees, and pray till the candles no more burn, and the Popish images crumble in their places, you will yet never understand myself or any woman."
"There's no question of Popish images between us," he answered, vainly trying for foothold. "Pray as you please, and I'll see no harm comes to the Mistress of Rozel."
He was out of his bearings and impatient. Religion to him was a dull recreation invented chiefly for women. She became plain enough now. "'Tis no images nor religion that stands between us," she answered, "though they might well do so. It is that I do not love you, Monsieur of Rozel."
His face, which had slowly clouded, suddenly cleared. "Love! Love!" He laughed good-humouredly. "Love comes, I'm told, with marriage. But we can do well enough without fugling on that pipe. Come, come, dost think I'm not a proper man and a gentleman? Dost think I'll not use thee well and 'fend thee, Huguenot though thou art, 'gainst trouble or fret or any man's persecutions--be he my Lord Bishop, my Lord Chancellor, or King of France, or any other?"
She came a step closer to him, even as though she would lay a hand upon his arm. "I believe that you would do all that in you lay," she answered steadily. "Yours is a rough wooing, but it is honest--"
"Rough! Rough!" he protested, for he thought he had behaved like some Adonis. Was it not ten years only since he had been at Court!