"My `presence desired'!" broke in Custance. "What meaneth your Grace, an' it like you? Our fair cousin did verily arede [tell] me that your Grace commandeth mine appearing in London; and thither I had gone, had it not pleased your Grace to win hither." "So quoth she; but this was other matter," calmly rejoined the King. "Our Council thought good, fair Cousin, that you should be of the guests bidden unto the wedding of our cousin of Kent with the fair Lady Lucy of Milan." For one instant after the words were spoken, there was dead silence through the room--the silence which marks the midst of a cyclone. The next moment, Custance rose, and faced the man who held her life in his hands. The spell of his mysterious power was suddenly broken; and the old fiery spirit of Plantagenet, which was stronger in her than in him, flamed in her eyes and nerved her voice. "You meant _that_?" she demanded, dropping etiquette. "It hath been reckoned expedient," was the calm reply. "Then you may drag me thither in my coffin, for alive will I never go!" "This, Custance, to the King's Highness' face!" deprecated her pardoned and (just then) subservient brother. "To his face? Ay,--better than behind his back!" cried the defiant Princess. "And to thy face, Harry of Bolingbroke, I do thee to wit that thou art no king of mine, nor I owe thee no allegiance! Wreak thy will on me for saying it! After all, I can die but once; and I can die as beseems a King's daughter; and I would as lief die and be rid of thee as 'bide in a world vexed with thy governance." "Custance! Custance!" cried Edward and Isabel in concert. "Let be, fair Cousins," answered the cool unmoved tones of the King. "We can make large allowance for our cousin's words--they be but nature." This astute man knew how to overlook angry words. And certainly no words he could have used would have vexed Custance half so much as this assumption of calm superiority. "Speak your will, Lady," he quietly added. "To all likelihood it shall do you some relievance to uncharge your mind after this fashion; and I were loth to let you of that ease. For us, we are used to hear our intent misconceived. But all said, hear our pleasure." Which was as much as to say with contemptuous pity,--Poor captive bird! beat your wings against the iron bars of your cage as much as you fancy it; they are iron, after all. "Fair Cousin," resumed the King, "you must be at this wedding, clad in your widow's garb; and you must set your hand to the paper which our cousin Isabel holdeth. Know that if you be obedient, the custody and marriage of your son, with all lands of your sometime Lord, shall be yours, and you shall forthwith be set at full liberty, nor word further spoken touching past offences. But you still refusing, then every rood of your land is forfeit, and the marriages and custody of all your childre shall be given unto our fair aunt, the Duchess Dowager of York. We await your answer."