"Not by a long way, but it is a beginning. To-day I am not altogether distasteful--to-morrow I might e'en be tolerated ... in a week toleration might turn to liking ... and after that, liking to..."
"Never," she broke in firmly, "I should have to forget that which is indelibly writ upon my memory."
"And what is that?"
"That you married me without love and without wooing--bought me like a bundle of goods just because my father is powerful and yours ambitious. A week ago we were betrothed, Messire. Since then how hath your time been passed?"
"In wild, ecstatic half-hours spent in the presence of your duenna and sitting opposite to the chilliest bride in Christendom," he said whimsically.
"And the rest of the time in the taverns of Ghent," she retorted hotly, "and places of ill-repute."
"Who told you that?" he asked quietly.
"Oh! your reputation is well known: how could it fail to reach mine ears."
"Evil tongues always make themselves heard, Madonna," he said, still speaking very quietly, although now he sat quite apart from her, with his long legs stretched out before him and his hands clasped between his knees. "I would you had not listened."
"I would I had not heard," she assented, "for then I should not have added one more humiliation to all those which I have had to endure."