to find himself colouring under her smile and paling under her
disdain; to have his mind running on rhymes, and his soul so enslaved
that, if she is not to be won, chagrin will dislodge it from his body.

Here was a fine mood for a man who had entered upon his business by
pledging himself to win and wed this girl in cold and supreme
indifference to her personality. And that pledge, how I cursed it
during those days at Lavedan! How I cursed Chatellerault, cunning,
subtle trickster that he was! How I cursed myself for my lack of
chivalry and honour in having been lured so easily into so damnable
a business! For when the memory of that wager rose before me it
brought despair in its train. Had I found Roxalanne the sort of
woman that I had looked to find - the only sort that I had ever
known - then matters had been easy. I had set myself in cold blood,
and by such wiles as I knew, to win such affection as might be hers
to bestow; and I would have married her in much the same spirit as
a man performs any other of the necessary acts of his lifetime and
station. I would have told her that I was Bardelys, and to the woman
that I had expected to find there had been no difficulty in making
the confession. But to Roxalanne! Had there been no wager, I might
have confessed my identity. As it was, I found it impossible to
avow the one without the other. For the sweet innocence that
invested her gentle, trusting soul must have given pause to any but
the most abandoned of men before committing a vileness in connection
with her.

We were much together during that week, and just as day by day, hour
by hour, my passion grew and grew until it absorbed me utterly, so,
too, did it seem to me that it awakened in her a responsive note.
There was an odd light at times in her soft eyes; I came upon her