“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-humoredly. “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? “Be assured, monsieur, that I know how to prize the man who speaks after the light given him. I know that you are a brave and valorous gentleman. I must thank you most truly and heartily, but, monsieur, you and yours are not for me. Seek elsewhere, among your own people, in your own religion and language and position, the Mistress of Rozel.” He was dumfounded. Now he comprehended the plain fact that he had been declined. “You send me packing!” he blurted out, getting red in the face. “Ah, no! Say that is my misfortune that I cannot give myself the great honor,” she said, in her tone a little disdainful dryness, a little pity, a little feeling that here was a good friend lost. “It’s not because of the French soldier that was with Montgomery at Domfront?--I’ve heard that story. But he’s gone to heaven, and ’tis vain crying for last year’s breath,” he said, with proud philosophy.