hair reaches
to my knees when I stand up, to the floor when I sit down. I am a king's
daughter. Do you not think me beautiful?'

'Yes, Madame. Oh, Madame--!' Jehane, trembling before her visions, could
hardly stand still; but the Queen (who had no visions now the mirror was
put by) went plaining on.

'When I was in my father's court his poets called me Frozen Heart,
because I was cold in loving. Messire Bertran de Born loved me, and so
did my cousin the Count of Provence, and the Count of Orange, and
Raimbaut, and Gaucelm, and Ebles of Ventadorn. Now I have found one
colder than ever I was, and I am burning. Are you a great lover of the
King?'

At this question, put so quietly, Jehane grew grave. It took her above
her sense of dangers, being in itself a dignity. 'I love the King so
well, Queen Berengere,' she said, 'that I think I shall make him hate me
in time.'

'Folly,' snapped the Queen, 'or guile. You would spur him. Is it true
what the Abbot Milo told me?'

'I know not what he has told you,' said Jehane; 'but it is true that I
have not dared let the King love me, and now dare least of all.'

The Queen clenched her hands and teeth. 'You devil,' she said, 'how I
hate you. You reject what I long for, and he loathes me for your sake.
You a creature of nought, and I a king's daughter.'

From the nostrils of Jehane the breath came fluttering and quick; in her
splendid bosom stirred a storm that, if she had chosen to let it loose,
could have shrivelled this little prickly leaf: but she replied nothing
to the Queen's hatred. Instead, with eyes fixed in vacancy, and one hand
upon her neck, she spoke her own purpose and lifted the talk to high
matters.

'I touch not again your King and mine, O Queen. But I go to save him.'

'Woman,' said Berengere, 'do you dare tell me this? Are my miseries
nothing to you? Have you not worked woe enough?'

Jehane suddenly threw her hair back, fell upon her knees, lifted her
chin. 'Madame, Madame, Madame! I must save him if I die. I implore your
pardon--I must go!'

'Why, what can you do against Montferrat?' The Queen shivered a little:
Jehane looked fixedly at her, solemn as a dying nun.

'You say that I am handsome,' she said, then stopped. Then in a very low
voice--'Well, I will do what I can.' She hung her golden head.

The Queen, after a moment of shock, laughed cruelly. 'I suppose I could
not wish you anything worse than that. I hate you above all people in
the world,