“I will make preparations at once,” he said, moved by her zeal and by her strong sense of the necessity of immediate operations. Then as he started to leave her, he turned.
“Would you travel in that garb, pucelle?”[7] he asked hesitatingly.
Jeanne smiled, divining the difficulties he foresaw were she to retain her woman’s garb in travelling. She had already 147 given the matter thought, and perceived that if she were to live among soldiers she must change the dress she wore. So she answered promptly:
“I will willingly dress as a man. In truth, it would be more seemly.”
De Metz nodded approval, and went his way. After this, because joys like sorrows come not singly, one after another began to believe in her. In a few days another man-at-arms came to her. He was an older man than de Metz and a graver. At his salutation Jeanne looked at him intently.
“Have I not seen you somewhere, messire?” she asked.
“I think not,” he answered lightly. “Methinks I should not have forgotten it had we ever met. Yet stay!” bending a keen glance upon her. “Are not you the little maid who dressed my wounded arm at your father’s house in Domremy?”
“It may be, messire.”
“It is,” he affirmed. “The wound healed quickly, for the treatment was good. So you are that little maid? And now you have come here with a mission? Tell me of it, pucelle. Can you in very truth do as you say: raise the siege of Orléans, and bring the King to his anointing?”
“Not I, messire; but my Lord, the King of Heaven, will do it through me. I am but his humble instrument.”