"I ask your Grace's pardon," he said slowly, "for having entered
uninvited. Yet I am glad that I did, since I have found what was kept
from me so long."
"I fancied your idol so changed that you might not care to find it
after all!"
Beatrix hardly understood what the words meant, but she knew that they
were intended to hurt both her and Gilbert, and she saw by his face
what he felt. Knowing as she did that the Queen was very strongly
attracted by him, she would not have been human if she had not felt in
her throat the pulse of triumph, as she stood beside the most beautiful
woman in the world, pale, slight, sad-eyed, but preferred before the
other's supreme beauty by the one man whose preference meant anything
at all. But a moment later she forgot herself and feared for him.
"Madam," he said very slowly and distinctly, "I trust that I may not
fail in courtesy, either toward your Grace, or toward any other woman,
high or low; and none but the blind man would deny that, of all women,
you are fairest, wherefore you may cast it in the face of other ladies
of your court that you are fairer than they. But since your Grace would
wear a man's armour and draw a knight's sword, and ride for the Cross,
shoulder to shoulder with the gentlemen of Normandy and Gascony and
France, I shall tell you without fear of discourtesy, as one man would
tell another, that your words and your deeds are less gentle than your
royal blood."
He finished speaking and looked her quietly in the face, his arms
folded, his brow calm, his eyes still and clear.
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