("Why need you stay so long, though?" Dame Niafer inquired.
"Well," Manuel explained, "one thing led to another, as it were."
"H'm!" Niafer remarked.)
He had presently a private talk with the Queen. How was she dressed? As near as Manuel recalled, she wore a green mantle fastened in front with a square fermoir of gems and wrought gold; under it, a close fitting gown of gold-diapered brocade, with tight sleeves so long that they half covered her hands, something like mitts. Her crown was of floriated trefoils surmounting a band of rubies. Of course, though, they might have been only garnets—
("And where was it that she dressed up in all this finery to talk with you in private?"
"Why, at Woodstock, naturally."
"I know it was at Woodstock, but whereabouts at Woodstock?"
"It was by a window, my dear, by a window with panes of white glass and wooden lattices and a pent covered with lead."
"Your account is very circumstantial, but where was the window?"
"Oh, now I understand you! It was in a room."