"Since this morning?"
"Nay, then! Since the first day you arrived with your story; asking such careful questions, carelessly. But be not wroth with yourself, Hugh. Faithful to the hilt, have you been. Only—no true lover was ever a diplomat! Matters which mean more than life, cannot be dissembled by true hearts from keen eyes."
"Then why all the talk concerning Seraphine?" demanded the Knight.
"Seraphine, my son, has served a useful purpose in various conversations. Never before, in the whole of her little shallow, selfish life has Seraphine been so disinterestedly helpful. That you sat here just now, thinking me witless beyond belief, just when I most desired not to appear to know too much, I owe to the swollen countenance of Seraphine."
"My lord," exclaimed the Knight, overcome with shame. "My lord! How knew you——"
"Peace, lad! Fash not thyself over it. Is it not a part of my sacred office to follow in the footsteps of my Master and to be a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart? Also, respecting, yea, approving your reasons for reticence, I would have let you depart not suspecting my knowledge of that which you wished to conceal, were it not that we must now face this fact together:—Since penning that message of apparent finality, the Prioress has tried her wings."
A rush of bewildered joy flooded the face of the Knight.
"Reverend Father!" he said, "think you that means hope for me?"
Symon of Worcester considered this question carefully, sitting in his favourite attitude, his lips compressed against his finger-tips.
At length; "I think it means just this," he said. "A conflict, in her, between the mental and the physical; between reason and instinct; thought and feeling. The calm, collected mind sent you that reasoned message of final refusal. The sentient body, vibrant with bounding life, instinctively prepares itself for the possibility of the ride with you to Warwick. This gives equal balance to the scale. But a third factor will be called in, finally to decide the matter. By that she will abide; and neither you nor I, neither earth nor hell, neither things past, things present, nor things to come, could avail to move her."