ot welcome, I may well depart straightway, and seek a way out of
thy land, if thou wouldst drive me thence, as well as out of thine
house."

Thereat the Lady turned and looked on him, and when her eyes met his, he
felt a pang of fear and desire mingled shoot through his heart. This
time she spoke to him; but coldly, without either wrath or any thought of
him: "Newcomer," she said, "I have not bidden thee hither; but here mayst
thou abide a while if thou wilt; nevertheless, take heed that here is no
King's Court. There is, forsooth, a folk that serveth me (or, it may be,
more than one), of whom thou wert best to know nought. Of others I have
but two servants, whom thou wilt see; and the one is a strange creature,
who should scare thee or scathe thee with a good will, but of a good will
shall serve nought save me; the other is a woman, a thrall, of little
avail, save that, being compelled, she will work woman's service for me,
but whom none else shall compel . . . Yea, but what is all this to thee;
or to me that I should tell it to thee? I will not drive thee away; but
if thine entertainment please thee not, make no plaint thereof to me, but
depart at thy will. Now is this talk betwixt us overlong, since, as thou
seest, I and this King's Son are in converse together. Art thou a King's
Son?"

"Nay, Lady," said Walter, "I am but of the sons of the merchants."

"It matters not," she said; "go thy ways into one of the chambers."

And straightway she fell a-talking to the man who sat beside her
concerning the singing of the birds beneath her window in the morning;
and of how she had bathed her that day in a pool of the woodlands, when
she had been heated with hunting, and so forth; and all as if there had
been none there save her and the King's Son.

But Walter departed all ashamed, as though he had been a poor man thrust
away from a rich kinsman's door; and he said to himself that this woman
was hateful, and nought love-worthy, and that she was little like to
tempt him, despite all the fairness of her body.

No one else he saw in the house that even; he found meat and drink duly
served on a fair table, and thereafter he came on a goodly bed, and all
things needful, but no child of Adam to do him service, or bid him
welcome or warning. Nevertheless he ate, and drank, and slept, and put
off thought of all these things till the morrow, all the more as he hoped
to see the kind maiden some time betwixt sunrise and suns