But I might have known that he was no true lawyer to be so eager about
that last. For upon the continuance and fostering of differences the
law-men of all nations thrive and eat their bread with honey thereto.

As my father often said, "Better the stroke of the Red Axe than that of
the scrivener's goose-quill. My solution is kindlier, sooner over, hurts
less, and is all the same in the end!"

Ysolinde thought a little before she answered me.

"No man ever made me suffer thus before," she said, "though I have seen
and known many men. I am older than you, Hugo, and have travelled in many
countries, the lands from which these things came. But true love, the
pain and the pleasure of it, have I never known."

She leaned her head on her hand and her elbow on the table, turning thus
to look long and intently at me. I felt oafish and awkward, as Jan Lubber
Fiend might have done before the King. Many things I might have wished to
say and do with that slender figure and lissome waist so near me. But I
knew not how to begin. Yet I think the desire came not so much from love
or passion, but rather from a natural longing to explore those mysteries
concerning which I had read so much after Friar Laurence had done me the
service of teaching me French. But it was well that stupidity was my
friend. For rebounding like a vain, upstart young monkey from my mood of
self-depreciation, I must needs hold it for certain that all was within
my grasp, and that the Lady Ysolinde expected as much of me, which thing
would have wrought my downfall.

"Yon ride soon to Plassenburg, I hear," she said, after she had looked at
me a long time steadily with the emerald eyes shining upon me. Then it