Ignoring the Knight's sullen silence, he began his story in the cheerful voice which takes for granted a willing and an interested listener.
"When the Prioress and myself were discussing your hopes, my son, and I was urging, in your interests, liberty of flight for Sister Mary Seraphine, I informed the Reverend Mother that the carrying out of your plans, carefully laid in order to keep any scandal concerning the White Ladies from reaching the city, would involve for Seraphine a ride of many hours to Warwick, almost immediately upon safely reaching the Star hostel. This seemed as nothing to the lover who, by his own shewing, had ofttimes seen her 'ride like a bird, all day, on the moors.' But to us who know the effect of monastic life and how quickly such matters as these become lost arts through disuse, this romantic ride in the late afternoon and on into the summer night, loomed large as a possible obstacle to the successful flight of Seraphine.
"Therefore, in order that our little bird might try her wings, regain her seat and mastery of a horse, and rid herself of a first painful stiffness, I persuaded the Reverend Mother to grant the nuns a Play Day, in honour of my visit, promising to send them my white palfrey, suitably caparisoned, in safe charge of a good lay-brother, so that all nuns who pleased, might ride in the river meadow. You would not think it," said the Bishop, with a smile, "but the White Ladies dearly love such sport, when it is lawful. They have an agèd ass which they gleefully mount in turns, on Play Days, in the courtyard and in the meadow. Therefore riding is not altogether strange to them, although my palfrey, Iconoklastes, is somewhat of an advance upon their mild ass, Sheba."
The Knight's sad face had brightened at mention of the beasts.
"Wherefore 'Iconoklastes'?" he asked, with interest. It struck him as a curious name for a palfrey.
"Because," replied the Bishop, "soon after I had bought him he trampled to ruin, in a fit of misplaced merriment, some flower beds on which I had spent much precious time and care, and of which I was inordinately fond."
"Brute," said the Knight, puzzled, but unwilling to admit it. "Methinks I should have named him 'Devil,' for the doing of such diabolic mischief."
"Nay," said the Bishop, gently. "The Devil would have spared my flower beds. They were a snare unto me."
"And wherefore 'Sheba'?" queried the Knight.
"I named her so, when I gave her to the Prioress," said the Bishop, "in reply to a question put to me by the Reverend Mother. The ass was elderly and mild, even then, but a handsome creature, of good breed. The Prioress asked me whether she still had too much spirit to be easily managed by the lay-sisters. I answered that her name was 'Sheba.'"