The King fiercely said, “Go on.”
“Eh, sire, I intend to. You left England undefended that you might posture a little in the eyes of Europe. And meanwhile a woman preserves England, a woman gives you Scotland as a gift, and in return asks nothing—God have mercy on us!—save that you nightly chafe your feet with a bit of woollen. You hear of it—and inquire, ‘Where is Madame de Salisbury?’ Here beyond doubt is the cock of Aesop’s fable,” snarled John Copeland, “who unearthed a gem and grumbled that his diamond was not a grain of corn.”
“You shall be hanged at dawn,” the King replied. “Meanwhile spit out your venom.”
“I say to you, then,” John Copeland continued, “that to-day you are master of Europe. I say to you that, but for this woman whom for twenty years you have neglected, you would to-day be mouldering in some pauper’s grave. Eh, without question, you most magnanimously loved that shrew of Salisbury! because you fancied the color of her eyes, Sire Edward, and admired the angle between her nose and her forehead. Minstrels unborn will sing of this great love of yours. Meantime I say to you”—now the man’s rage was monstrous—“I say to you, go home to your too-tedious wife, the source of all your glory! sit at her feet! and let her teach you what love is!” He flung away the dagger. “There you have the truth. Now summon your attendants, my très beau sire, and have me hanged.”
The King made no movement. “You have been bold—” he said at last.
“But you have been far bolder, sire. For twenty years you have dared to flout that love which is God’s noblest heritage to His children.”
King Edward sat in meditation for a long while. The squinting of his left eye was now very noticeable. “I consider my wife’s clerk,” he drily said, “to discourse of love in somewhat too much the tone of a lover.” And a flush was his reward.
But when this Copeland spoke he was like one transfigured. His voice was grave and very tender, and he said:
“As the fish have their life in the waters, so I have and always shall have mine in love. Love made me choose and dare to emulate a lady, long ago, through whom I live contented, without expecting any other good. Her purity is so inestimable that I cannot say whether I derive more pride or sorrow from its preeminence. She does not love me, and she will never love me. She would condemn me to be hewed in fragments sooner than permit her husband’s finger to be injured. Yet she surpasses all others so utterly that I would rather hunger in her presence than enjoy from another all which a lover can devise.”
Sire Edward stroked the table through this while, with an inverted pen. He cleared his throat. He said, half-fretfully: