The man and woman stood opposite to each other for a while in silence, Esclaramonde thinking inscrutable thoughts, Rainouart gazing at her like a man who wakes from sleep-walking and wonders why he has come to such a spot and how. Esclaramonde was habited in a robe of many reds, subtly blended, for she wished through the richness of these shifting tints to recall some royal rose imperial in its wealth of crimson petals, yet still a tender pink at the core. Indeed, Rainouart thought of a rose as he looked at her: his thoughts had been all of roses since he saw her so clad at the ducal banquet, and because of the rose his heart was full of care and travail. While his senses spurred him to woo such voluptuous beauty, enigmatical memories cried out to him strange forest cries; it was as if soft voices were calling at his ears, asking, "Is this the rose of the guarded garden, is this the noble rose of the world?" But her witchery was potent over his wits; his spirit seemed tugged this way and that inexplicably; he was bewildered; he would and he would not. At last he found voice under the spell of those lamping eyes that lured his pulses, and he stretched out his hands to the wonderful woman. "To my arms, fair wife!" he cried, and though his voice sounded unreal in his ears, as if it were an echo of speech whispered to him by other lips, it rang real enough in the ears of Esclaramonde, and almost she regretted for the space of half a second that she could not answer promptly to the call. But swiftly she thought of the golden apple, swiftly she remembered that her lord would be no less loving when the night was a little older, and his senses had rekindled from unremembered sleep. She lifted her hand for a moment as if to stay his vehement advance; then she moved to the table, where a golden beaker stood circled with golden goblets, and she saw that the beaker was brimmed with wine. Dexterously and unseen of Rainouart she drew from her girdle a tiny golden phial, jerked the contents into one of the goblets and slipped the phial out of sight. Then she poured two full cups of wine, and held out the treasonable cup in her white hand to her lover. "Pledge our health and happiness," she said, and her voice and eyes commanded, though voice and eyes seemed only to entreat. As a shaft of sunlight suddenly pierces a mist, so suddenly did Rainouart's promise to the Prince of Eleusis drive its dart through the dark web of desire that enveloped his mind. Through all the wedding ceremony, through all the later festival, overcrowed by the magic of Esclaramonde, he had forgotten that pledge to the knight who had conquered him. Now it lived again with the duchess's proffer and beat furiously at his heart. He took the cup from his bride's hands and looked eagerly into her eyes, luminous and cryptic as the eyes of a sphinx. "To your health, Fidelity," he murmured, half in idolatry, half in irony, as he lifted the cup to his lips.