The entrance of a third woman interrupted the conversation between Maria and Perrette, who, uttering a short cry, ran to a miserably dressed young girl, just let in. "You here, Yolande?"
Yolande preserved her beauty, but her face had lost the charm of candor, that rendered her so touching when she and her mother implored Neroweg VI not to deprive them of their patrimony. The face of Yolande, alternately bold and gloomy, according as she brazened out or blushed at her degradation, at least gave token that she was conscious of her infamy. At sight of Perrette, who ran towards her with friendly eagerness, Yolande stepped back ashamed of meeting with the queen of the wenches. Perrette, reading on the countenance of the noble girl a mixture of embarrassment and disdain, said to her reproachfully: "You were not quite so proud when, ten leagues from Antioch, I kept you from dying of thirst and hunger! Oh, you put on airs! You have become haughty!"
"Why did I leave Gaul?" muttered Yolande with sorrowful contrition. "Though reduced to misery, at least I would not have known ignominy. I would not have become a courtezan! A curse upon you, Neroweg! By depriving me of the inheritance of my father, you caused my misfortune and shame!"
The girl, unable to repress her tears, hid her face in her hands, while Maria, who had attentively examined her, said to Perrette in an undertone: "Oh, the pretty legs of that girl! Do you know Yolande?"
"We left Gaul together, I on the arm of the Gibbet-cheater, Yolande at the crupper of her lover, Eucher. In Bohemia, Eucher was killed by the Bohemians who resisted us. Yolande, now a widow and alone, could not continue so long a journey without protection. From one protector to another, Yolande fell under the eyes of the handsome Duke of Aquitaine at Bairut in Syria. Later I found her riding on the road to Tripoli dying of hunger, thirst and fatigue——"
"And you came to my aid, Perrette," fell in Yolande, who, having dried her tears, overheard the words of the queen of the wenches. "You gave me bread and water to appease my hunger and thirst, and you saved my life."
"Come, my children, let's not have tears," remarked the matron. "Tears make old faces. You shall be taken to the baths of the Emir, where are assembled some of the most beautiful Saracen female slaves of that infidel dog."
At that moment an old woman, the same who had introduced Perrette and Yolande to the hall, came in roaring with laughter, and said to the other shrew: "Oh, Maria, what a find! A diamond in your brothel!"
"What makes you laugh that way?"
"A minute ago, coming back from casting my hook on the market-place,"—and she broke out laughing anew. Presently she proceeded: "And I found there—I found there—a diamond!"