Then, when he kissed her full red lips,—the first time he had kissed a woman's lips,—it came over him that this exquisite creature was no companion for a poor russet priest.
He raised her hand to his lips. "How came you to love a poor priest!" he exclaimed, wondering.
"I love the Bishop in you," she answered, laughing.
"Ah, 'tis a long way from an excommunicated poor priest to a Bishop."
"Nay," she pouted, "I shall have a palace."
He thought her beauty worthy of a king, and told her so.
"Then make me a queen!" she cried impudently. "Yea, a great lady, a great prelate's lady. I can adorn a palace, think you, then a palace, a palace give me!"
He tried to take her in fun: "Ay, a palace, a palace. They grow in the fields—pick me one!"
"Laugh not, I mean a real palace of stone. Look not so dazed. Was not the Archdeaconate of Ely offered you? You shall yet have a Bishopric."