'Folly,' snapped the Queen, 'or guile. You would spur him. Is it true what the Abbot Milo told me?'
'I know not what he has told you,' said Jehane; 'but it is true that I have not dared let the King love me, and now dare least of all.'
The Queen clenched her hands and teeth. 'You devil,' she said, 'how I hate you. You reject what I long for, and he loathes me for your sake. You a creature of nought, and I a king's daughter.'
From the nostrils of Jehane the breath came fluttering and quick; in her splendid bosom stirred a storm that, if she had chosen to let it loose, could have shrivelled this little prickly leaf: but she replied nothing to the Queen's hatred. Instead, with eyes fixed in vacancy, and one hand upon her neck, she spoke her own purpose and lifted the talk to high matters.
'I touch not again your King and mine, O Queen. But I go to save him.'
'Woman,' said Berengère, 'do you dare tell me this? Are my miseries nothing to you? Have you not worked woe enough?'
Jehane suddenly threw her hair back, fell upon her knees, lifted her chin. 'Madame, Madame, Madame! I must save him if I die. I implore your pardon—I must go!'
'Why, what can you do against Montferrat?' The Queen shivered a little: Jehane looked fixedly at her, solemn as a dying nun.
'You say that I am handsome,' she said, then stopped. Then in a very low voice—'Well, I will do what I can.' She hung her golden head.
The Queen, after a moment of shock, laughed cruelly. 'I suppose I could not wish you anything worse than that. I hate you above all people in the world, mother of a bastard. Oh, it will be enough punishment. Go, you hot snake; leave me.'