e were sure that one volley would do it, and
no botching. The ordeal had been more severe than usual: his cheek still
twitched, and he leaned against his official table to belie his
trembling knees. He had been settling a change of billets, when the
viragos broke in on him, and only his clerk had been present; for his
council--and this he felt sorely--much bullied in old days, were
treating him to solitude and the monopoly of the burden. His clerk was
with him now; but affected to be busy with the papers on the table.
Perhaps he was scared too, and equally bent on hiding it; at any rate,
it was the Burgomaster who first discovered that they were not alone,
but that one woman still lingered. She had placed herself in a corner of
the oak seat that ran round the panelled room; and the stained glass of
the windows, blazoned with the arms of Huymonde and the Counts of
Flanders, cast a veil of tawny lights between her and the gazer; behind
which she seemed to lurk. The Burgomaster started, then remembered that
the danger was over for the time--he was not afraid of one woman; and in
a harsh voice he bade her follow her mates.

"Begone, wench!" he said. "And go to your prayers! That is women's work.
Leave these things to men."

The woman rose to her full height. "When men," she answered, in a voice
at which the Burgomaster started afresh, "hide themselves, it is time
women stood forward. Where is your son?"

The Burgomaster swore.

"Where is your son?" the woman repeated firmly.

The Burgomaster swore again, his sallow face grown purple: then he
looked at his clerk and signed to him to go. The clerk went, wondering
and gaping--for this was unusual--and the two were left together.

At that the Burgomaster found his voice. "You Jezebel!" he cried,
approaching the woman. "How dare you come here to make mischief? How
dare you lay your tongue to my son's name? Do you know, shameless one,
that if I were to give the word----"

But at that word the woman caught fire, blazed up, and outdid him in
rage. She was a middle-aged woman and spare, with a face naturally pale
and refined, and an air of pride that peeped even through the neat
poverty of her dress. But at that word she shook her hands in his face
and her eyes blazed.

"Shameless?" she retorted. "No, but shameful; and through whom? Through
your son, your villain, your craven of a son who hides now! Through your
base-born tradesman of a son who dare face neither woman nor m