"Madam," said the old Lord Chamberlain, testily, "there are two kinds of jealousy--a pure fear by which the young and restless lover is animated--and a grovelling suspicion, which is jealousy in the worst sense of the term. Your suspicion wounds your self-esteem--it piques your honour--and is but a new phase of selfishness, for you suspect yourself an injured woman." "And justly too, for Comyn's coldness to me during the last month cannot be accounted for but by some new fancy." "Your husband is never jealous of _you_, madam." "That only proves his indifference. 'Tis shamel, false, and unknightly; and I only trust that the presence of our boy, the young Sir John, whom the King has just knighted, will in some degree recal my wandering husband to a sense of his own honour and the honour of his wife and daughters." "Madam, how often shall I assure you that the husband of one so beautiful as you could never prove false--I am an old man, your father's friend, and may well say this." "True, you are an old man, and were my father's friend," resumed the lady, whose black eyes flashed with dusky fire through their tears; "thus it is the more culpable in you to be in my husband's wicked secrets, and endeavouring thus to blind and to deceive a loving and devoted wife. But woe to Comyn and to you in that hour when I prove the falsehood of you both!" And gathering up her long silk kirtle, which was worn without sleeves, but was so long in the skirt as constantly to require upholding by one hand, she swept away with the air of an offended queen, and with her long and magnificent hair floating over her shoulders from under a band of burnished gold. "Alas!" thought the old chamberlain, shrugging his shoulders, "how true it is, that love being jealous, maketh a good eye look asquint."