Angele stole a hand into the cool palm of the other. "He was builded for
some lonely sea all his own. Creation cheated him. But God give me ever
such friends as he, and I shall indeed 'have good company' and fear no
issue." She sighed.

"Remains there still a fear? Did you not have good promise in the
Queen's words that night?"

"Ay, so it seemed, and so it seemed before--on May Day, and yet--"

"And yet she banished you, and tried you, and kept you heart-sick?
Sweet, know you not how bitter a thing it is to owe a debt of love to one
whom we have injured? So it was with her. The Queen is not a saint, but
very woman. Marriage she hath ever contemned and hated; men she hath
desired to keep her faithful and impassioned servitors. So does power
blind us. And the braver the man, the more she would have him in her
service, at her feet, the centre of the world."

"I had served her in a crisis, an hour of peril. Was naught due me?"

The Duke's Daughter drew her close. "She never meant but that all should
be well. And because you had fastened on her feelings as never I have
seen another of your sex, so for the moment she resented it; and because
De la Foret was yours--ah, if you had each been naught to the other, how
easy it would have run! Do you not understand?"

"Nay, then, and yea, then--and I put it from me. See, am I not happy
now? Upon your friendship I build."