“Indeed, it has been so according to your word, and we are--I am--shall ever be beholden. In storm you have been with us, so true a pilot and so brave a sailor; and if we come to port and the quiet shore, there shall be spread a feast of remembrance which shall never grow cold, seigneur.” “One ingle-nook right warm shall be Where my heart hath good company,” sang the fool, and catching by the arm Buonespoir, who ducked his head in farewell, ran him into the greenwood. Angèle came forward as if to stay Buonespoir, but stopped short reflectively. As she did so the Duke’s Daughter whispered quickly into Lemprière’s ear. Swelling with pride he nodded, and said, “I will reach him and discover myself to him, and bring him, if he stray, most undoubted and infallible lady,” and with an air of mystery he made a heavily respectful exit. Left alone, the two ladies seated themselves in the bower of roses and for a moment were silent. Presently the Duke’s Daughter laughed aloud. “In what seas of dear conceit swims your leviathan seigneur, heart’s-ease?” Angèle stole a hand into the cool palm of the other. “He was builded for some lonely sea all his own. Creation cheated him. But God give me ever such friends as he, and I shall, indeed, ‘have good company’ and fear no issue.” She sighed. “Remains there still a fear? Did you not have good promise in the Queen’s words _that night_?” “Ay, so it seemed, and so it seemed before--on May Day, and yet--” “And yet she banished you, and tried you, and kept you heart-sick? Sweet, know you not how bitter a thing it is to owe a debt of love to one whom we have injured? So it was with her. The Queen is not a saint, but very woman. Marriage she hath ever contemned and hated; men she hath desired to keep her faithful and impassioned servitors. So does power blind us. And the braver the man, the more she would have him in her service, at her feet, the centre of the world.” “I had served her in a crisis, an hour of peril. Was naught due me?” The Duke’s Daughter drew her close. “She never meant but that all should be well. And because you had fastened on her feelings as never I have seen another of your sex, so for the moment she resented it; and because De la Forêt was yours--ah, if you had each been naught to the other, how easy it would have run! Do you not understand?” “Nay, then, and yea, then--and I put it from me. See, am I not happy now? Upon your friendship I build.”