"Hush! I am no love-monger now, no gallantry girl, but a most politic plotter. The world spins like a potter's wheel to shape the vessel of our enterprise. We have a wizard ready for your king. Will Louis come?" Noel nodded decisively. "As linnet to looking-glass. He is greedy of star-wisdom. Does your astrologer know his lesson?" "He is parrot-perfect. When all is quiet, give an owl's cry thrice, and a friend will bring him. He will warn the king against his Grand Constable; he will praise Tristan, applaud Olivier, and commend Messire Noel le Jolys." Noel chuckled. "Then I shall be king of the castle, and you shall have a great gold chain and pearls as big as a virgin's tears." Noel did not detect the scorn in Huguette's voice, as she answered with apparent amiability: "You know the way to win a woman." "I am no jingling rhyme-broker, I thank heaven!" Noel cried. "I pay my way." He caught Huguette in his arms as he spoke and sought to kiss her, but she avoided him dexterously. "I will kiss you when you win," she cried. Noel would have pushed his suit further, but at that moment the great clock of the palace chimed the half-hour and struck upon his memory as well as upon his ear. He knew that the king expected him and he abandoned his love-making reluctantly. "You are indeed a politician," he sighed. "I must wait on the king." He opened the door of the tower and stood for a moment looking regretfully at the girl, who smiled at him temptingly, then he passed in and drew the door behind him. The moment he had disappeared, the girl's bearing changed. Her face and gesture blazoned a world of contempt for her courtier lover. "Fool, dunce, dolt, ass, peacock, buzzard, owl!" she stormed. Then her rage faded and she turned sadly on her heel as another man's name came into her heart and fluttered to her lips. "The world is as sour as a rotten orange since François went into exile." Her glance fell on the lute which lay on the marble seat where Villon had left it. She took it up and began to thrum it pensively, whispering to herself the words of Villon's song: "Daughters of Pleasure, one and all, Of form and features delicate," she murmured to herself. As she did so, Villon, weary of wandering in the rose alleys, came into the moonlit space and saw the cloaked and hooded figure where it sat. In a moment his mind recalled the strange greetings he had overheard between the two pilgrims. "There is another of those pilgrims," he said to himself, determined now to solve the mystery. He crossed the grass quickly to the figure's side and saluted it. "Hail, little brother." Huguette leaped to her feet and answered lightly: "Hail, little sister." "Why little sister?" Villon asked in some astonishment. The masked pilgrim answered him smartly: "If I am a brother of yours, you must need be a sister of mine. But you talk out of the litany." "What harm," Villon retorted, "if you give me responses?" Huguette shrugged her shoulders.