"What is the matter, Bohemond?" she asked, in a voice that was wont to govern those who heard it with the sensuous charm of strange music chanted at sunset. Her eyes were still fixed on Simon, and Simon, nothing daunted, gave her back her gaze as boldly as if she had been a staring kitchen-wench, while the knights and men-at-arms stood about as fixed and rigid as armored effigies in audience halls. "Grace," the golden page answered, "here lies a man dead or sleeping on the grass, and here stands a sturdy fellow with a club that keeps watch over him." The lady whom the page hailed as "Grace" pushed aside the curtains of her litter impatiently and stepped into the moonlight. She was no more than common tall, but she carried her head high and commandingly, and Simon, still eying her steadfastly, thought that she walked like some old-time empress. Swiftly she stepped to where Rainouart lay, bent over him, and recognized him as the gallant youth whose face and form had stirred her facile pulses when he rode victorious down the lists in Paris, and who denied her as decidedly as he denied all the ladies at the court of Philip the Fair. She swung on Simon like a cat about to scratch. "This is the young Lord Rainouart of Athens," she cried. "How comes he here and in this case? Have you injured him, villain?" "I have neither hurt him nor helped him," Simon answered, composedly, "nor, for the matter of that, am I a villain, nor other than an honest soldier; but I can tell you all there is to tell when I know to whom I speak." The little gilded page stepped a pace forward and addressed Simon sharply. "It is the Duchess Esclaramonde of Thebes, fellow, who honors you with her speech." Simon shrugged his shoulders; the woman was a fine piece of flesh were she duchess or no duchess, and his gaze was blatant admiration. The duchess, appraising his bulk, did not resent his possessive gaze. "Who are you, sir?" she asked, in a voice more amiable, while she motioned to her attendant to rein his zeal. Simon made her a leg. "Lady, I am a soldier of fortune voyaging to Athens to seek for service under the bully duke, but your concern is not with me but with his countship yonder." The Duchess of Thebes looked down again upon the fair sleeping body on the sward. "How did Sir Rainouart come here?" she demanded, and Simon answered: