ver without her drawing
me aside and asking me if I had heard any news of you, and talking over
with me the chances there might be of your escape. I can tell you that
there are not a few young nobles of Genoa who would give much to be
allowed as you are to carry her gage, or wear her colours. You should
see her now; you would scarce know her again, so altered and improved is
she; there is no fairer face in all Italy."

"I hope some day to meet her again," Gervaise replied; "although I own
to knowing it were better that I should not do so. Until she gave me her
gage I had scarcely noticed her. I have, as you know, no experience of
women, and had so much on my mind at the time, what with the fuss they
were making about us, and the question of getting the prizes here, that
in truth I paid but slight attention to the fair faces of the dames of
Genoa. But the gracious and earnest way in which, though scarce more
than a child, she gave me her gage, and vowed that no other knight
should possess one so long as I lived, struck me so greatly that I own
I gave the matter much more thought than was right or becoming in one
of our Order. The incident was much more gratifying to me than all
the honour paid me by the Republic, and during the long months of
my captivity it has recurred to me so frequently that I have in vain
endeavoured to chase it from my thoughts, as sinful thus to allow myself
constantly to think of any woman. Do not mistake me, Sir Fabricius. I
am speaking to you as to a confessor, and just as I have kept her amulet
hidden from all, so is the thought of her a secret I would not part with
for my life. I do not for a moment deceive myself with the thought that,
beyond the fact that her gift has made her feel an interest in me and my
fate, she has any sentiment in the matter: probably, indeed, she looks
back upon the gift as a foolish act of girlish enthusiasm that led her
into making a promise that she now cannot but find unpleasantly binding;
for it is but natural that among the young nobles of her own rank and
country there must be some whom she would see with pleasure wearing her
colours."

Caretto looked at him with some amusement.

"Were you not bound by your vows as a knight of the Order, how would you
feel in the matter?"

"I should feel worse," Gervaise said, without hesitation. "I have
oftentimes thought that over, and I see that it is good for me I am so
bound. It does not decrease my chances, for, as I