"Have I your Majesty's permission to withdraw?" she said, coldly.
"If you will not accept our poor escort to the king," answered Charles.
"My ladies and myself will dispense with so much honor, Sire," she returned.
"Such service as we can command is at your disposal, Madam," he repeated.
"It is not far distant to the château, Sire."
"As you will," said the emperor.
With no further word she bowed deeply, turned, and slowly retracing her steps, mounted her horse, and rode away, followed by her maids and the troopers of France.
As she disappeared, without one backward glance, the duke gazed quickly toward the spot where Jacqueline had been standing. He remembered the young girl had heard his story; he had caught her eyes upon him while he was telling it; very deep, serious, judicial, they seemed. Were they weighing his past infatuation for the princess; holding the scales to his acts? Swiftly he turned to her now, but she had vanished. Save for rough nurses, companions in arms, moving here and there among the wounded, he and the emperor stood alone. In the bushes a bird which had left a nest of fledglings returned and caroled among the boughs; a clarifying melody after the mad passions of the day. The elder man noted the direction of the duke's glance, the yellow ribbon on his arm.
"So it was a jestress, not a princess you found, thou dreamer," he said, half-ironically.
"The daughter of the Constable of Dubrois, Sire," was the reply.