“Craving your pardon for breaking in upon your meditations,” quoth the lad with mock respect, “but the Lady Isabel desires your presence.” Peregrine, returning to matters of the moment, experienced a heart beat. Here was his stage call, and his part by no means well-conned as yet. Save at a distance he had not set eyes upon the Lady Isabel since childhood, sole mistress now of the house of Belisle, since the Lady Clare, her mother, had been laid to rest. The Lord Robert de Belisle, her father, was in Gascony with his King subduing a rebellion. “And she has sent you to demand my presence?” asked Peregrine lazily, his inward tremor well controlled. “Since I am here,” grinned the boy. “Where is she?” demanded Peregrine, less desirous of knowing than wishful to gain a moment’s respite. “In the west chamber among her women,” replied the boy. “She is—weary.” A pause preceded the last word. Peregrine lifted his tabor from the broad sill of the window. “Take me to her,” he said. Crossing the hall and mounting the stairs the boy eyed Peregrine, gave him the close scrutiny of childhood, summed up what he found there, and I fancy found it not amiss for all that it is not usual to pay a vast respect to fools. Peregrine caught the lad’s eye upon him. “Well, what do you make of me?” he smiled. The boy flushed scarlet from brow to chin. Having caught a glimpse of the man beneath the motley words halted on his tongue. “Your name?” asked Peregrine still smiling. “Antony Philip Delamore,” stuttered the lad. “They call me Pippo.” “Pippo,” echoed Peregrine thoughtfully. And the boy heard the name pleasantly from his lips. The stairs mounted they passed along a corridor, paused at an alcove curtain-hung with tapestry. Here Pippo, entering first, held aside the heavy draperies. “Madam, the Jester awaits your pleasure.” A voice smooth, flexible, yet holding, one would say, a ring of metal rather than a hint of silkiness, replied: “Well, let him enter.” Peregrine stepped across the threshold, and Pippo let the curtain fall behind him. In the room lighted by candles, a woman sat beside the fireplace. Her dress was of crimson silk, a splash of colour against the darkness of the oak chair, and in the shadows of the room. She was tall and very slight, yet you could not call her thin. Her skin was of ivory whiteness. Her brow, low and broad, was framed in masses of dark hair glinting with vivid red lights. You caught the gleam of pearls among its darkness. Towards the chin the face narrowed sharply. The mouth, subtle-lipped, showed a hint of snowy teeth. The eyes brown, lustrous, with the blue whites of a child’s eyes, looked from beneath level brows towards the curtain. Peregrine saw her eyes.