“I shall not go back on it, never fear.”
Having won this binding promise, Brother Jean Turelure left the place, radiant with satisfaction. And as he went from the house, he cried out loud in the street:
“Here is a good work done! By Our Lord God’s good help, I have turned and set in the way toward the gate of Paradise a lady, who, albeit not sinning precisely in the way of fornication spoken of by the Prophet, yet was wont to employ for men’s temptation the clay whereof the Creator had kneaded her that she might serve and adore him withal. She will forsake these naughty habits to adopt a better life. I have throughly changed her. Praise be to God!”
Hardly had the good Brother gone down the stairs when Messire Philippe de Coetquis ran up them and scratched at Madame Violante’s door. She welcomed him with a beaming smile, and led him into a closet, furnished with carpets and cushions galore, wherein he had never been admitted before. From this he augured well. He offered her sweetmeats he had in a box.
“Here be sugar-plums to suck, madame; they are sweet and sugared, but not so sweet as your lips.”
To which the lady retorted he was a vain, silly fop to make boast of a fruit he had never tasted.
He answered her meetly, kissing her forthwith on the mouth.
She manifested scarce any annoyance and said only she was an honest woman and a true wife. He congratulated her and advised her not to lock up this jewel of hers in such close keeping that no man could enjoy it. “For, of a surety,” he swore, “you will be robbed of it, and that right soon.”
“Try then,” said she, cuffing him daintily over the ears with her pretty pink palms.
But he was master by this time to take whatsoever he wished of her. She kept protesting with little cries: