"I thought you brave. But is it so ill a fancy, then, that comes to you in your sleep?"
"Rather so fair that I would never look away."
"Then I would see it too. Tell me of it."
"'Twere easier for you to look in your mirror, mistress, for tongue of mine could never tell half the charms of which I dare to dream."
She laughed again, laying her hand on his shoulder very lightly.
"I am glad you are my knight," she said, with the whimsical frankness of a child. "For when you say your pretty speeches they sound true, and not hollow, like those of the others."
Vaguely jealous, he was yet grateful.
"Your knight," he answered, in that deep, low voice of his which rang with suppressed feeling, "to pluck aside the thorns and shield my lady with my life."
Her lips were parted, smiling at a picture his words conveyed.
Yet her eyes challenged his.