That conduct in the son which had so perplexed the father had not escaped the notice of those knights who were the nearest companions of the prince. These thought him changed, thought his meditative moods strange; but for the most part they set it down playfully to moon-calfishness. "It is the young candle burning overhotly with its first love, and guttering with every draught of fancy," was the comment of Jaufre de Brabant. Guy de Hainault, more sympathetic, if not less cynical, had his doubts, and tried to answer them with friendly questions to which he got no satisfactory answers. Certainly he saw that the prince when in her presence seemed devoted to his imperious mistress, walked loyally by her side, listened reverently to her speech, and seemed to thrill at her frequent caresses. Yet Guy de Hainault said to Count Ernault, who bade him keep his thoughts to himself, that to his eyes the young prince seemed more like a man in a dream than a man in love, and Guy de Hainault had dreamed enough and loved enough to speak with authority. On one point there was no quarrel: there certainly was no doubt of the duchess's free and full devotion to her lover. She had not even for form's sake made any diffident protest against so swift a wedding, the swiftness whereof came so largely from her own suggestion. Indeed, it seemed as if with shining eyes and sugared tongue she spurred her young lord to protestations and entreaties. The court, for the most part, however, entered into no niceties of discrimination between the conduct of the youth and the lady. It sufficed for those jolly spirits, male and female, that there was to be a wedding, for a wedding meant festivals, and the sight of a wedding, too, had a way of spurring laggard gentlemen into proposals and prompting ladies that would be coy to come to directer terms. Wedding calls for wedding, as blood is said to call for blood. The genial duke made his way with his son through the rapidly formed alley of retiring lords and ladies to the place where Esclaramonde leaned against a pillar of the gallery and fanned herself languidly, watching their advance with bright eyes. "Here," said the duke, cheerfully, "is one who would not be denied to come to your presence for all that I could do to occupy him with other matters." He gently urged Rainouart forward as he spoke, and Rainouart, under the influence of the eyes of Esclaramonde, moved with what seemed to the spectators a lover's eagerness to greet her. The duke smiled a vast smile on all around him.