The fierce desire which the King called love clamored for interpretation. Robert spoke swiftly, warmly, feeding his greedy eyes with her beauty.
“When I drank the white water from your hands, I drank love with it. When I looked into your glorious eyes love leaped from them, all armed, and conquered me. The wood wind blew one tress of your red hair across my face and the red flame of love ran through my veins and burned out all memories save only the memory of your face. I would lose a kingdom to kiss you on the lips. I would surrender the power and the glory to be kissed upon the lips by you.”
He made as if to clasp her in his arms, but in a moment she eluded him with the quickness of some forest creature. She had risen and was standing at a little distance before he realized that his longing arms clasped emptiness.
“You speak with the speech of angels,” Perpetua said, speaking low; “wonderful words that shine like little stars, that make me tremble as if they were little flames that played about me.” She paused for a moment as if thoughts troubled her; then went on: “And yet I think you say too much. All I should ask of my lover would be but a true heart and a true hand.”
Anger strove with admiration on Robert’s cheeks and in his eyes. He was untrained to any cross, and the composure with which the girl at once accepted and held off his homage galled him. But he curbed his irritation, remembering himself as the beseeching hunter, not as the commanding King.
Quitting the column, he came to where she stood. She did not move, but she did not take his offered hand, and he let it fall idly by his side, while he tried to overcrow her with his bold eyes.
“You have never loved or you would not reason so,” he argued. “Let me look into your eyes. I think you love me a little.”
He was very close to her now, but she did not surrender to his lips or his eyes. A kind of wonder was growing in her face, but she met his gaze as firmly as she answered his words.
“I have never loved, and yet I know what love might be. The spring wind sighs in these forests, and the nightingales are my friends. Though I know only of the world by hearsay, I know that men and women have done great things for love’s sake, and are remembered with songs and tears. I am not afraid of love.”
Her eyes were smiling as she spoke. Life seemed clear and easy to her. Life seemed clear and easy to her suitor; but his clarity, his ease, were not those of the mountain maid, and he misunderstood her, weighing her soul in false scales. He wooed her now with a low, triumphant challenge.