If she could weep, they said, she could love, they said.

And she smiled pleasantly on those ardent princes, and troubadours
concealing kingly names.

Then one by one they told, each suitor prince the story of his love,
with outstretched hands and kneeling on the knee; and very sorry and
pitiful were the tales, so that often up in the galleries some maid of
the palace wept. And very graciously she nodded her head like a
listless magnolia in the deeps of the night moving idly to all the
breezes its glorious bloom.

And when the princes had told their desperate loves and had departed
away with no other spoil than of their own tears only, even then there
came the unknown troubadours and told their tales in song, concealing
their gracious names.

And there was one, Ackronnion, clothed with rags, on which was the
dust of roads, and underneath the rags was war-scarred armour whereon
were dints of blows; and when he stroked his harp and sang his song,
in the gallery above maidens wept, and even old lords chamberlain
whimpered among themselves and thereafter laughed through their tears
and said: "It is easy to make old people weep and to bring idle tears
from lazy girls; but he will not set a-weeping the Queen of the
Woods."

And graciously she nodded, and he was the last. And disconsolate went
away those dukes and princes, and troubadours in disguise. Yet
Ackronnion pondered as he went away.