She extended her hand, which Argathona took and feigned to salute. Then, swiftly, the wood-nymph turned and passed from the silken tent into the meadow. As the dryad came into the liberal air she breathed a great breath. It seemed to the daughter of the forest as if she had escaped from some strange place where subtle poison guising like sweet odor saturated the atmosphere and murdered all wholesome thoughts. She stretched her arms joyously, as one released from cramping labor, and, smiling to think that so far the woodland guile had triumphed, she moved towards her own pavilion. Instantly she was aware that the field which she had expected to find deserted still presented a scene of animation. Duke Baldwin with a little cloud of knights and courtiers about him was slowly tramping towards his palace with an angry gloom upon his countenance, which was reflected in varying shades of obsequious sympathy upon the faces of those who followed him. A little removed from these a gigantic soldier moved slowly across the field, his vacant, honest face overcast with melancholy. Still farther off she could see Simon standing in front of her pavilion, carefully counting gold pieces from one hand into the other and whistling blithely to himself. By the time she had reached her squire Duke Baldwin and his courtiers had disappeared from the field, the gigantic soldier had vanished, and the lists were vacant save for herself and Simon. XIX SIMON THE STALWART When Duke Baldwin, leaving the gallery in no good-humor with the world to ask after his vanquished son, entered the field, he found that his son had arisen and gone to his tent. Rainouart left with Count Ernault the assurance that he was unhurt, that he had been fairly overthrown by the best-planted blow he had ever received, and that his fall was due to no fatigue on his part, but solely to the greater skill of his antagonist. As Duke Baldwin listened frowningly to the phrases of the lord-marshal, he caught sight of a brawny fellow who was lounging in the lists at a little distance from the duke and the courtiers who accompanied him. This was Simon of Rouen, who, seeing that Argathona had been summoned to the pavilion of the Duchess of Thebes, thought he might as well while away the time by stretching his legs over the trampled turf. Even in a bad temper Duke Baldwin had an appreciation of a fine figure in a man, and the sight of Simon's proportions brought a sudden gleam of interest into his angry eyes. He cherished a taste for collecting giants, and he surveyed Simon with the eager appreciation of a possible purchaser. It never occurred to Duke Baldwin to doubt that any man-at-arms could be other than rejoiced to enter his service, just as it never occurred to him to doubt that any lady would be other than pleased to accept his homage.