"I accept him at once," answered the duke. "I should indeed be hard to please if I declined such a gift."
So it was that Pierre became attached to the household of Savoy. He remained in the duke's service for some time, and easily surpassed his fellow pages in all the knightly exercises in which they were being trained. Yet with all his prowess he was so modest and so manly that he excited no envy among his companions, and the duke and duchess came to love him as if he were their own son.
Pierre's chivalric traits won to him the hearts of his fellows and his patrons; but it was perhaps his personal beauty and his charm of manner that went furthest toward winning him yet another love—a love that he valued more than all others. There was in the train of the good duchess a little maid of honor, whose heart soon went out to the handsome youth. At service in the same palace, the two saw much of each other, and soon Pierre had no eyes for any maid but this one.
The little coquette did not fail to make Pierre quite miserable by repelling his attentions for a time, when she saw that she had won him; but at length, one day, while not in waiting on her mistress, she was captured by the little page, and made to listen to the story of his love.
"I am going to make myself a great knight some day," he declared with the pride and faith of youth, "and then I am coming back for thee, and we shall be married."
"Alas," cried the damsel, now quite as earnest as he, "thou art of an illustrious house, and canst marry some great lady who can advance thee in the world. I am but a poor maid, and if I accept thy love, I destroy thy hopes."
"What care I for that?" cried the impatient lover. "The question is, dost thou love me."
"Yes," she whispered.
"Then I shall not give thee up," he declared, "and I shall tell the duchess all about it."
The maid was more worldly wise than he, however, and insisted that for the time they should be only friends. Shortly after this a change took place in Pierre's affairs,—a change which was to separate him for years from the maid he loved.