"Mine, mine--not yours! Gladly I would go to prison or to death for
the love of one so fair!"

"My lord, my lord," she laughed, with a tolerant protest in her voice,
"you keep up the credit of your house right nobly. How goes the
distich? My mother taught it me upon the bridge of Avignon, where also
as here in Scotland the children dance and sing."

"First in the love of Woman,
First in the field of fight,
First in the death that men must die,
Such is the Douglas' right!"

"Here and now," he said, still looking at her, "'tis only the first I
crave."

"Earl William, positively you must come to Court!" she shrilled into
sudden tinkling laughter; "there be ladies there more worthy of your
ardour than a poor errant maiden such as I."

"A Court," cried Earl William, scornfully, "to the Seneschal's court!
Nay, truly. Could a Stewart ever keep his faith or pay his debts?
Never, since the first of them licked his way into a lady's favour."

"Oh," she answered lightly, "I meant not the Court of Stirling nor yet
the Chancellor's Castle of Edinburgh. I meant the only great
Court--the Court of France, the Court of Charles the Seventh, the
Court which already owns the sway of its rarest ornament, your own
Scottish Princess Margaret."