iven to Ademar de Gernet.
She considered him at first entirely colourless. He was not talkative;
he was neither handsome nor ugly; he showed no special characteristic
which would serve to label him. She merely put him on one side, and
never thought of him unless she happened to see him.

Her fellow bower-maidens also had their ideas concerning these young
gentlemen. Olympias was--or fancied herself--madly in love with the
handsome Reginald, on whom Elaine cracked jokes and played tricks, and
Diana exhausted all her satire. As to Reginald, he was too deeply in
love with himself to be sensible of the attractions of any other person.
It struck Clarice as very odd when she found that the weak and gentle
Roisia was a timid admirer of the bear-like De Chaucombe. As for Diana,
her shafts were levelled impartially at all; but in her inmost heart
Clarice fancied that she liked Vivian Barkeworth. Elaine was
heart-whole, and plainly showed it.

The Countess had not improved on further acquaintance. She was not only
a tyrant, but a capricious one. Not merely was penalty sure to follow
on not pleasing her, but it was not easy to say what would please her at
any given moment.

"We might as well be in a nunnery!" exclaimed Diana.

"Nay," said Elaine, "for then we could not get out."

"Don't flatter thyself on getting out, pray," returned Diana. "We shall
never get out except by marrying, or really going into a nunnery."

"For which I am sure I have no vocation," laughed Elaine. "Oh, no! I
shall marry; and won't I lead my baron a dance!"

"Who is it to be, Elaine?" asked Clarice.

"_Ha, chetife_! How do I know? The Lady will settle that. I only hope
it won't be a man who puts oil on his hair and scents himself."

This remark was a side-thrust at Reginald, as Olympias well knew, and
she looked reproachfully at Elaine.

"Well, I hope it won't be one who kills half-a-dozen men every morning
before breakfast," said Diana, making a hit at Fulk.

It was Roisia's turn to look reproachful. Clarice could not help
laughing.

"What dost thou think of our giddy speeches, Heliet?" said she.

Heliet looked up with her bright smile.

"Very like maidens' fancies," she said. "For me, I am never like to
wed, so I can look on from the outside."

"But what manner of man shouldst thou fancy, Heliet?"

"Oh ay, do tell us!" cried more than one voice.

"I warrant he'll be a priest," said Elaine.

"He will have fair hair a