He repeated it to himself, striving to realize what it meant. Did it mean anything? He remembered how mockingly the jestress' face had shone before him in the past; how derisive was her irony. From Fools' hall to the pavilion of the tournament had she flouted him.
"Wedded two days since!"
"You must have your drollery," he said, unsteadily, at length.
She did not reply, and he continued to question her with his eyes. Quite still she remained, save for an almost imperceptible movement of breathing. Against the dull beams from the aperture above, her hair darkly framed her face, pale, dim with half-lights, illusory. When he again spoke his voice sounded new to his own ears.
"How could the princess have been married? Even if I have lain here as long as you say, the day for the wedding was set for at least a week from now."
"But changed!" she responded, unexpectedly.
"Changed!" he cried, sitting on the edge of the couch, and regarding her as though he doubted he had heard aright. "Why should it have been changed?"
"Because the duke became a most impatient suitor," she answered. "Daily he grew more eager. Finally, to attain his end, he importuned the countess. She laughed, but good-naturedly acceded to his request, and, in turn importuned the king—who generously yielded. It has been a rare laughing matter at court—that the duke, who appeared the least passionate adorer, should really have been such a restless one."
"Dolt that I have been!" exclaimed the jester, with more anger, it seemed to the girl, than jealousy. "He knew about Caillette, but professed to be ignorant that the emperor was in Spain. And I believed his words; thought I was holding something from him; let myself imagine he could not penetrate my designs. While all the time he was intriguing with the king's favorite and felt the sense of his own security. What a cat's paw he made of me! And so he—they are gone, Jacqueline?"
"Yes," she returned, surprised at his language, and, for the first time, wondering if the duke's wooing admitted of other complications than she had suspected. "They are on their way to the duke's kingdom."