She sighed and withdrew her hand from Eleanor's, as if by instinct. The Queen did not start, but for an instant her eyes gathered light into themselves and her mouth hardened. She glanced at the weak girl, broken and suffering, and looking so small beside her, and she was angry that Gilbert should have chosen anything so pitiful against her own lofty beauty. But presently her anger ceased, not because it was unopposed, but because she was too large-hearted for any meanness. "Forget that I am the Queen," she said at last. "Only remember that I am a woman and that we two love one man." Beatrix shivered and moved uneasily on her pillow, pressing her hand to her throat as if something choked her. "You are cruel!" Her voice would not serve her for more just then, and she stared at the roof of the tent. "Love is cruel," answered Eleanor, in a low voice, and suddenly the hand that held the fan dropped upon her knee, and her eyes looked at it thoughtfully. But Beatrix roused herself. There was more courage and latent energy in the slight girl than any one dreamed. Her words came clearly. "Yours is--not mine! For his sake you call yourself a woman like me, but for his sake only. Is your face nothing, is your power nothing, is it nothing that you can hide me from him at your pleasure, or let me see him as you will? What is any one to you, who can toss a king aside like a broken toy when he thwarts you, who can make war upon empires with no man's help, if you choose? Is Gilbert a god that he should not yield to you? Is he above men that he should not forget me, and go to you, the most beautiful woman in the world, and the most daring, and the most powerful--to you, Eleanor of Guienne, Queen of France? You have all; you want that one thing more which is all I have! You are right--love is cruel!" The Queen listened in silence, too generous still to smile at the girl, too much in earnest to be hurt. "A man has a right to choose for himself," she answered when Beatrix paused at last. "Yes, but you take that right from him. You thrust a choice upon him--that is your cruelty." "How?" "Look at me and look at yourself. Would any man think twice in choosing? And yet--" a faint smile flickered in the mask of pain--"in Constantinople--in the garden--" She stopped, happy for a moment in the memory of his defence of her. The Queen was silent and faintly blushed for her cruel speech on that day. She could have done worse deeds and been less ashamed before herself. But Beatrix went on. "Besides," she said, turning her suffering eyes to Eleanor's face, "your love is sinful, mine is not." The Queen's look darkened suddenly. This was different ground. "Leave priests' talk to priests," she answered curtly. "It will soon be the talk of other men besides priests," reproved Beatrix.