"And Ma--" Poor Meliora got no further, for Dame Isabel gave her a buffet on the side of her head that nigh knocked her off the form. I could not but think that some part of that buffet was owing to us three, though Meliora had it all. But what so angered Dame Isabel, that might I not know. At that time came the summons to supper, so the matter ended. But as supper was passing, Dame Joan de Vaux, by whom I sat, with Master Almoner on mine other hand, saith to me-- "Pray you, Dame Cicely, have you any guess who it were that you met coming forth?" "I have, and I have not," said I. "There was that in his face which I knew full well, yet cannot I bethink me of his name." "It was not Master Madefray, trow?" "In no wise: a higher man than he, and of fairer hair." "Not a priest neither?" "Nay, certes." "Leave not to sup your soup, Dame Cicely, nor show no astonishment, I pray, while I ask yet a question. Was it--Sir Roger the Mortimer of Ludlow?" For all Dame Joan's warnful words, I nigh dropped my spoon, and I never knew how the rest of the soup tasted. "Wala wa!" said I, under my breath, "but I do believe it was he." "I saw him," saith she, quietly. "And take my word for it, friend--that man cometh for no good." "Marry!" cried I in some heat, "how dare he come nigh the Queen at all? he, a banished man! Without, soothly, he came humbly to entreat her intercession with the King for his pardon. But e'en then, he might far more meetly have sent his petition by some other. Verily, I marvel she would see him!" "Do you so?" saith Dame Joan in that low quiet voice. "So do not I. She will see him yet again, or I mistake much." "_Ha, chetife_!" I made answer. "It is full well we be on our road back to Paris, for there at least will he not dare to come." "Not dare?" "Surely not, for the King of France, which himself hath banished him, should never suffer it." Dame Joan helped herself to a roasted plover with a smile. When the sewer was gone, quoth she-- "I think, Dame Cicely, you know full little whether of Sir Roger de Mortimer or of the King of France. For the last, he is as easily blinded a man as you may lightly see; and if our Queen his sister told him black was white, he should but suppose that she saw better than he. And for the other--is there aught in all this world, whether as to bravery or as to wickedness, that Sir Roger de Mortimer would _not_ dare?" "Dear heart!" cried I. "I made account we had done with men of that order." "You did?" Dame Joan's tone, and the somewhat dry smile which went with it, said full plainly, "In no wise." "Well, soothly we had enough and to spare!" quoth I. "There was my Lord of Lancaster--God rest his soul!--and Sir Piers de Gavaston (if he were as ill man as some said)." "He was not a saint, I think," she said: "yet could I name far worser men than he." "And my sometime Lord of Warwick," said I, "was no saint likewise, or I mistake." "Therein," saith she, "have you the right."