“Natheless,” answered Calote, “I 've not been in haste to wear the ribbon thou gavest me.”
And Jack Straw swore at her, and cursed his lame head that kept him helpless. 'T was a rough wooing. Calote minded her of the squire, and her heart sickened against Jack Straw.
At Eastertide she saw Stephen again. He was come to St. Paul's to hear Mass, and she thought peradventure he had forgotten her. But then he looked in her eyes.
She found him awaiting her beneath the north porch when she came out, and he took her hand and begged leave to walk with her. In the beginning she said him nay, but when he told her he was bearer of a message from the Prince Richard, she let him have his way, and they went out through the Aldersgate into Smithfield, under the shadow of the convent wall by St. Bartholomew's.
“O Calote!” said the squire. “O white flower! At night in my dream thou hast come to me; and when I awoke I thought that no maid—nay, not thyself even—could be so fair as wert thou in the dream. And now,—and now,—behold! thou art more beautiful than thy dream-self.”
“Is 't the message of the Prince?” quoth Calote. She held one hand against her breast, for something fluttered there.
“Sweet heart, thou art loveliest of all ladies in England and in France,‘ said Stephen. ’Since I saw thee my heart is a white shrine, where I worship thee.”
“Hast thou forgotten that day in our cot?” asked Calote, very sad. “There was no lady's bower. Wilt leave me, sir? I may not listen. Betake thee to the palace with thy honeyed words!”
They stood in an angle of the wall, and Stephen knelt there and kissed the ragged edge of Calote's gown. While his head was bent, she put out her hand and had well-nigh touched his hair. But when he looked upward, she had both hands at her breast.
“O rose! O rose of love!” he murmured; and did not rise, but stayed kneeling, and so looking up.