"Uther left Winchester more than two months ago, and no word of him has come to Ambrosius." "Curious." "Madame, nothing is curious in Uther. If I were to hear some day that he had ridden down to Hades to fight a pitched battle with Satan, I should say, 'Poor Satan, I warrant he has a sore head.'" "Indeed!" quoth Igraine. She shook her hair, tilted her chin, and looked at Gorlois out of the corners of her eyes. She guessed her power, was young, and a woman. It tempted her to read this creature called "man" in his various forms and phases, and hold his heart in the hollow of her hand. Her interest in Gorlois was no discourtesy to her love for Pelleas. She had seen few men in her time; they seemed strange beings, strong yet weak, wise yet very foolish, sometimes heroic, yet utter children. Gorlois, who had the sun in his eyes, beheld her as in an unusual mist. He was warming to life, for his brain seemed full of the sound of harping, and his blood blithe with summer. Stretching out a hand he touched Igraine's hair as it poured over her shoulders, for the red gold threads seemed magnetic to his fingers, and the glimmer of her eyes made his tough flesh creep. "You have wonderful hair," he said. "I learnt that long ago," drawing the strand away. "The dawn of knowledge." "It reaches not so very far from my feet." Igraine hung out a flag, as it were, to try the man. She knew the look of Pelleas's eyes, and she wanted Gorlois for comparison. Standing up, she shook the glistening shroud about her while it seemed to drop perfumes and to spark out passion. The man's malady showed plainly enough on his face, but his eyes did not please Igraine. There was too much selfishness, not enough abasement. She knew Pelleas would have looked at her as though she was a saint in a church, and he but a lad from the brown ploughland. Igraine thought that she loved mute devotion far better than the bold impatient hunger on Gorlois's face. The man leant back and tilted his beard at her, while his eyes were half shut for the sun. "I have heard it told that women are ambitious. Is it truth?" Igraine, all gravity again, with her tentative mischief banished, looked at her knees, and said she could not tell. Gorlois waxed subtle. "Are you ambitious, Igraine?" "Ambitious, my lord?" "Have you never wished to stand out like a bright peak above the world?" "No." "Or to have the glory of your beauty filling the gate of fame like a scarlet sky?" Igraine forced a titter. "I suppose you are a poet, sir." "Only a fool, madame." "Ah!" "All poets are fools." "How do you contrive that?" "Because they are for ever praising women." "And yet you are a poet, my lord!" "How could I be else, madame, since I am a man?"