Gravity reigning in his face, irony rising in his mind, Count Ernault bowed and left the presence. At a sign from Esclaramonde the duchess's women withdrew into a further apartment of the pavilion, curtained off from the place where Esclaramonde now lay, who looked up alluringly into the impassive face of the youth. For to her, as to the others, with the glamour of the woodland will upon her, Argathona seemed no more than a handsome lad. "You joust well, youth," she said. "Who is your true-love?" "I played for a lady's sake," Argathona answered, "whom I maintain very fair." Esclaramonde leaned forward a little on her silken couch, resting herself on both hands, like some beautiful wild beast about to spring. "Who is this lady?" she asked, steel in her voice and steel in her eyes, for she could not bear to think that any man could find any woman fair while she was by. A smile rippled over the dryad's face. "I dare not say her name," she said, "yet, if you choose, you may see her." Esclaramonde's dark brows met in a frown. "Is she one of my women?" she asked, suddenly, and the sound of her voice boded ill for that one of her women whom the champion might name. Argathona shook her head. "Indeed no. She is not an inch below you in rank nor an inch above you in stature. Her eyes shine with no less than your brightness; her lips smile with your lively red. Here, if you please, is her image." Stooping a little, Argathona caught up the mirror with which the duchess had been playing and held it deftly in front of the beautiful, cruel face. The red blood raced into Esclaramonde's cheeks and ebbed again, leaving her strangely pale. "Am I your lady-love?" she cried, with that joy in her voice which conquest always brought her. "You are she I rode to see," Argathona answered, enigmatically. Esclaramonde gave a little sigh of dissatisfaction. "Your heel needed a sharper spur; you are a day too late. I am to be married this evening." Argathona laughed. "Love you, lady! I am a fellow of adventure, and would never make a hearth-haunting husband. I am here to-day and gone to-morrow. My love is the child of a night." Esclaramonde's eyes widened and dwindled like a cat's. She was thinking of many times and many nights and many comely men, and she was loath to admit that this stripling should slip through the net of her desires. "Why, we may find a time by-and-by," she sighed, all enticement. Argathona shook her head. "I ride from Athens to-morrow," she began, slowly; then swiftly, with the imperiousness of victory, she ended, "Give me to-night." The duchess laughed, but the duchess was pleased at the vehemence. "You are a mad rascal. Am I not to be married this evening?" Argathona answered her, in a lowered voice: "There is an old tale of the Theban country, how a beautiful, open-hearted lady would send her lord to sleep in the sipping of a spiced wine, and then talk in the starlight with some lighter, brighter body."