"What, a bauble for my jewel, too-eager lady?" he said harshly. "Do the women of this land hold themselves so light? In mine men carve their kisses with the sword. Hark ye, young Queen! set a better value on that red mouth if you'd continue to have it valued." "I could have you whipped for this," said Maudlin. "I do not think so," Harding answered, and stepped down the river-bank into his waiting boat. "I keep my clasp," said Clarimond. Seven men sprang hotly to their feet. "What's your will, Queen?" "Nothing," said Maudlin slowly, as she watched him row over the water. "Let the smith go. This test was between him and me and no man's business else. Well, he is of a temper to come through fire unmelted." She flashed a smile upon the seven that made them tremble. "But he is a mannerless churl, we will not think of him. Which among YOU would spurn my kiss?" She offered her mouth in turn, and seven flames passed over its scarlet. Maudlin laughed a little and beckoned her watching maids. "Well!" she said, taking the path to the castle, "He that had had strength to refuse me might have worn my favor to-morrow and for ever." And meanwhile by the further river-bank came Rosalind, with mushrooms in her skirt. And as she walked by the water in the evening she looked across to her lost castle-walls, and touched the pennies in her pouch and dreamed, while the sun dressed the running flood in his royalest colors. "Linen and purple and scarlet and gold," mused she; "and so I might sit there to-morrow among the rest. But linen and purple!" she said in scorn, "what should they profit my fathers' house? It is no silken daughter we lack, but a son of steel." And as she pondered a shadow crossed her, and out of his boat stepped Harding, new from his encounter with the Queen. He did not glance at her nor she at him; but the gleam of the broken weapon he carried cut for a single instant across her sight, and her hands hungered for it. "A sword!" thought she. "Ay, but an arm to wield the sword. Nay, if I had the sword it may be I could find an arm to wield it." She dropped her chin on her breast, and brooded on the vanishing shape of the Red Smith. "If I had been my fathers' son--oh!" cried she, shaken with new dreams, "what would I not give to the man who would strike a blow for our house?" Then she recalled what day it was. A year of miracles and changes had sped over her life; if she desired new miracles, this was the night to ask them.