“I AM ROBERT OF SICILY”
Robert answered proudly, confident now of reward.
“I am, indeed, the King.”
Perpetua looked on him with the same fearless honor wherewith she would have faced some monster in the forest.
“If you are the King, what have you to do with me?” she asked.
Robert answered her joyously, passionately.
“You shall be my loveliest mistress now, my loveliest memory forever.” But even as he spoke the fire in his blood was chilled by the scorn and wrath in Perpetua’s eyes.
“God pity and God pardon you,” she prayed. “You are called Robert the Bad by honest men. Be called so always by clean women!” Her outstretched right hand seemed to hurl her imprecation into his brain. Blind fury seized upon him.