Igraine smiled softly to herself, turned her back on Brastias and stared long into the fire. The man stood by, watching her with a humbled look, his fingers twisting restlessly at the broidery of his black tunic. Igraine traced out the mosaic patterns on the floor with the point of her shoe. "I think you men are all fools," she said. Brastias's silence might have suggested contradiction. "Have you ever loved a woman?" The man shifted, and went red under his straight fair hair. His eyes took a dreamy look. "Yes," he said, as though half-ashamed. Igraine hung her head and sighed. "Perhaps," she said, growing suddenly shy and out of countenance, "perhaps you may have learnt the lesson of the froward heart, the heart that comes by love when it is in peril of great loss." Brastias drew a quick, deep breath. "By the Virgin, that's true," he said. Igraine turned to the fire and hid her face from the man. There was a pathetic droop about her shoulders, a listless curving of her neck, that made Brastias picture her as burdened with some immoderate sorrow. He was an impressionable man, not in any amorous sense, but in the matter of sympathy towards his fellows. He thought he heard a catch in the girl's breathing that boded tears. Her hair looked very soft and lustrous as it curved over her ears and neck. "Madame Igraine." No answer. Brastias went a step nearer. "Listen to me." A slight turning of the head in response. "What ails you, madame?" "Never trouble." "I beseech you, tell me." The man was quite afire; his face looked bright and eager, and his eyes shone. "Gorlois has gone to the war." The words were jerked out one by one. "Madame!" "War--and death." "Courage, madame, courage. On my soul, you are not going to say--" "Brastias, you understand." "Then?" "Man, man, don't drag it out of me; don't you see? are you blind?" Brastias invoked a certain saint by the name of Christopher, and straightway emphasised his words by falling down on his knees beside Igraine. She had contrived to conjure up tears as she bent over the fire. Brastias found one of her hands and held it. "This will be my lord's salvation." "Think you so?" "On my soul, my dear lady, I thank our Lord Jesu from my heart. For I know my Lord Gorlois, and the bitterness that weighed him down, though he spoke little to me on this matter, being staunch to you, and to his courtesy. And by our Lord's Passion, madame, I love peace in a house, and quiet looks, and words like laughing water, for there is never a home where temper rules." "Brastias, you shame me." "God forbid, dear lady, there's no gospel vanity in my heart. I speak but out." The man's quaint outburst of gladness touched Igraine's honesty to the core, but she had no thought of recantation, for all the pricking of her conscience. She passed back to the open window and leant against the mullion, while Brastias rose from his knees and followed her.