"Far, far, my Philip!" replied the queen, leaning back her head upon his arm, and gazing up in his face with a look of that profound, unutterable affection, which sometimes dwells in woman's heart for her first and only love:--"far from this castle, and this court;--far from Philip's splendid chivalry, and his broad realms, and his fair cities; and yet with Philip still. I thought of my own father, and all his tenderness and love for me; and of my own sweet Istria! and I thought how hard was the fate of princes, that some duty always separated them from some of those they love, and----"
"And doubtless you wished to quit your Philip for those that you love better," interrupted the king, with a smile at the very charge which he well knew would soon be contradicted.
"Oh, no! no!" replied Agnes; "but, as I looked out yonder, and thought it was the way to Istria, I wished that my Philip was but a simple knight, and I a humble demoiselle. Then should he mount his horse, and I would spring upon my palfrey; and we would ride gaily back to my native land, and see my father once again, and live happily with those we loved."
"But tell me, Agnes," said Philip, with a tone of melancholy that struck her, "if you were told, that you might to-morrow quit me, and return to your father, and your own fair land, would you not go?"
"Would I quit you?" cried Agnes, starting up, and placing her two hands upon her husband's arm, while she gazed in his face with a look of surprise that had no small touch of fear in it:--"would I quit you? Never! And if you drove me forth, I would come back and be your servant--your slave; or would watch in the corridors but to have a glance as you passed by;--or else I would die," she added, after a moment's pause, for she had spoken with all the rapid energy of alarmed affection. "But tell me, tell me, Philip, what did you mean? For all your smiling, you spoke gravely. Nay, kisses are no answers."
"I did but jest, my Agnes," replied Philip, holding her to his heart with a fond pressure. "Part with you! I would sooner part with life!"
As he spoke, the door of the chamber suddenly opened, the hangings were pushed aside, and an attendant appeared.
"How now," cried the king, unclasping his arms from the slight, beautiful form round which they were thrown. "How now, villain! Must my privacy be broken at every moment? How dare you enter my chamber without my call?" And his flashing eye and reddened cheek spoke that quick impatient spirit which never possessed any man's breast more strongly than that of Philip Augustus. And yet, strange to say, the powers of his mind were such, that every page of his history affords a proof of his having made even his most impetuous passions subservient to his policy;--not by conquering them, but by giving vent to them in such direction as suited best the exigency of the times, and the interest of his kingdom.
"Sire," replied the attendant with a profound reverence, "the good knight Sir Stephen Guerin has just arrived from Paris, and prays an audience."
"Admit him," said Philip; and his features, which had expanded like an unstrung bow while in the gentler moments of domestic happiness, and had flashed with the broad blaze of the lightning under the effect of sudden irritation, gradually contracted into a look of grave thought as his famous and excellent friend and minister Guerin approached.