The doctor shook his head.
“Not–worse?” she faltered.
“That I cannot say,” he replied. “The fever is very high.”
She glanced at her husband sitting gloomy and silent, and beckoned one of the women and whispered to her to fetch Prince Richard, who might charm the Prince out of his melancholy.
But when his second son was brought and led up to him, Edward showed no manner of interest.
Yet the child was of a neat and exact beauty and very richly dressed in brown silk and very humble in his duty.
“Were you afraid of the lance play?” asked his father.
Richard looked up in a mischievous and charming manner.
“I do prefer, Seigneur, to go in a litter to horseback,” he lisped.