'All cause, indeed, for thankfulness. But one day I shall hope to return, and in strength enough to hood a hawk that's stooping there.'
'That day is not yet. Besides, the sun is sinking, and we're far from home. So if you're at the end of your dreams we had best be moving.'
There was a tartness in her tone that did not escape him. It had been present lately whenever Montferrat was mentioned. It arose, he conceived, from some misunderstanding which he could not fathom. Either to fathom or to dispel it, he talked now as they rode, unfolding all that was in his mind, more than he knew was in his mind, until actual utterance discovered it for him.
'Are you telling me that you have left your heart in Montferrat?' she asked him.
'My heart?' He looked at her and laughed. 'In a sense you may say that. I have left a tangle which I desire one day to unravel. If that is to have left my heart there ...' He paused.
'A Perseus to deliver Andromeda from the dragon! A complete knight-errant aflame to ride in the service of beauty in duress! Oh, you shall yet live in an epic.'
'But why so bitter, lady?' wondered Bellarion.
'Bitter? I? I laugh, sir, that is all.'
'You laugh. And the matter is one for tears, I think.'
'The matter of your love-sickness for Valeria of Montferrat?'