than
I, for you are a wise and experienced man, and of an age to know and
to shun evil, whilst I am young and have no experience of the might and
power of love. You have a wife who desires you, honours you, and loves
you more than her own life; while I have a husband who avoids me, hates
me, and rates me as lightly as he would a servant maid. You are in love
with a woman who is already old, of meagre figure, and less fair than I;
whilst I love a gentleman younger, handsomer, and more amiable than you.
You love the wife of one of the best friends you have in the world, the
mistress, moreover, of your King and master, so that you offend against
the friendship that is due to the first, and the respect that is due to
the second; whereas I am in love with a gentleman whose only tie is his
love for me. Judge then fairly which of us two is the more worthy of
punishment or pardon: you, a man of wisdom and experience, who through
no provocation on my part have acted thus ill not only towards me, but
towards the King, to whom you are so greatly indebted; or I, who am
young and ignorant, who am slighted and despised by you, and loved by
the handsomest and most worshipful gentleman in France, a gentleman whom
I have loved in despair of ever being loved by you."

When the husband heard her utter these truths with so fair a
countenance, and with such a bold and graceful assurance as clearly
testified that she neither dreaded nor deserved any punishment, he was
overcome with astonishment, and could find nothing to reply except that
a man's honour and a woman's were not the same thing. However, since she
swore to him that there had been nothing between herself and her lover
but what she had told him, he was not minded to treat her ill, provided
she would act so no more, and that they both put away the memory of the
past. To this she agreed, and they went to bed in harmony together.

Next morning an old damosel who was in great fear for her mistress's
life came to her at her rising, and asked--

"Well, madam, and how do you fare?"

"I would have you know," said her mistress, laughing, "that there is not
a better husband than mine, for he believed me on my oath."

And so five or six days passed by.

Meanwhile the husband had such care of his wife that he caused a watch
to be kept on her both night and day. But for all his care he could not
prevent her from again speaking with her lover in a dark and suspicious
place. However, she c