"May not be," Rainouart flung back, hotly. "I tell you it must be. She saved my life and I loved her, and we swore our mutual troth. Then I was practised on by magic, and I forgot my true-love, and went in bondage to a false faith, and from this shame my true-love has saved me now as before she saved me from death. I am bound to her in honor as I am bound to her in love, and on my honor and by my love I will go to her with the dawn." Again Duke Baldwin shook his head, and again Duke Baldwin answered as before. "That may not be, son." Then seeing the anger shine in Rainouart's eyes, and the stubborn look on Rainouart's face that seemed to mirror his own native obstinacy, he went on in a voice that for him was gentle. "Hear me out, son Rainouart, for your honor is as near to me and as dear to me as my own, and against that I think no tongue has ever wagged." Rainouart's face darkened, for he thought of his mother, the gracious lady so basely abandoned, and he thanked God in his heart that his honor was not as the honor of Duke Baldwin. But Duke Baldwin was not skilled to read either his son's face or his son's heart, and he went on, bluffly: "As for love, why, I am a jolly lover, too, though you and I read in the book of love at different chapters. But you cannot go to your lass yet awhile, for your very honor's sake." "Why not?" Rainouart asked, with such a frown as might have wrinkled his father's forehead, and the big duke, who liked his son's manner best when most it resembled his own, went on very amiably to explain. He told how the Duchess of Thebes had declared war upon Athens, at which tidings Rainouart laughed contemptuously; and how Fernand Ximenes inclined to her, and would in all likelihood whistle the Grand Company to her cause. At this Rainouart's eyes shone and his pale cheeks flushed ruddy, for if this were so, it promised a fight that would be worth the fighting. "Therefore," the duke went on, "your sweetheart must wait awhile till this little brawl be over, for I am sure that no lass who played the lad so gallantly as your fancy would have her lover lag aloof from a battle." He smiled somewhat sourly as he spoke, for he had no great confidence in the martial constancy of knights that plied their books and fell in love with country wenches. But he read Rainouart's answer in his eyes before he got it from his lips, and it reassured him. "While Athens is at war," Rainouart said, simply, "I ride and fight with Athens. When Athens is at peace I will marry my true-love."