"We have no children." "Go on." "I shall send gold and an embassage to the Pope." She clenched her hands and could not speak for the moment. "You dare do this?" "I dare ten thousand greater things than this." "By God, messire." "By God, woman, am I going down to hell because you are my wife!" She grew quiet very suddenly, a dangerous move in a woman. "Very well," she said, "try it, dear lord. I am no fool. Try it, I am as strong as you." And so they rode on towards Avalon together. XVI It is impossible for two persons of marked individuality to be much together without becoming more or less faceted one towards the other. We appeal by sympathy, and inspire by contrast. What greater glory falls to a man’s lot than to be chastened by the warm May of some girl’s pure heart! Yeoland had felt the force of Fulviac’s manhood; the more eternal and holier instincts were being stirred in him by a woman’s face. The man’s life had been a transmigration. In his younger days the world had banqueted him; new poignancies had bubbled against his lips in the cup of pleasure. Later had come that inevitable weariness, that distaste of pomp, the mood that discovers vanity in all things. Finally he had set his heart upon a woman, a broken reed indeed, and had discovered her a hypocrite, according to the measure of her passions. There had been one brief burst of blasphemy. He had used his dagger and had disappeared. There had been much stir at the time. A ruby had fallen from the King’s crown. Some spoke of Palestine, others of a monastery, others of a cubit of keen steel. Fulviac had begun life over again. He had fallen back upon elemental interests--had gone hungry, fought for his supper, slept many a storm out under a tree. The breath of the wilderness had winnowed out luxury; rain had scourged him into philosophic hardihood. He had learnt in measure that nothing pleases and endures like simplicity. Even his ambition was simple in its audacious grandeur. Now the eyes of the daughter of Rual were like the eyes of a Madonna, and she stood in a circle of white lilies like the spirit of purity. Fulviac had begun to believe in her a little, to love her a little. She stood above all other women he had known. The ladies of the court were superb and comely, and marvellously kind, but they loved colour and contemned the robe of white. They were like a rich posy for a man to choose from, scarlet and gold, azure, damask or purple. You could love their bodies, but you could not trust their souls.