"It is a large one," she answered. "But," with a change to gentleness, "do me credit. I have not puled nor wept. I have uttered no cry, I have made no complaint. But I have righted myself, doing what not one woman in a hundred would have dared to do! I have wit that has tricked you, and courage that has not quailed before you. And henceforward I claim to be no puppet for your play, no doll for your dull hours! But your equal, my lord, and your mate; deepest in your counsels, the heart of your plans, your other brain, your other soul! Make me this, hold me thus--close to you, and----
"Is that the thing you bring me?" he said, with sarcasm. Yet she had moved him.
"No!" She fell a little from her height, she looked appeal. "My dowry is different. But say first, sir, I shall be this!"
"Bring me the spears," he answered, his eyes gleaming, "and you shall be that and more. Bring me the spears, and----" He made as if he would take her forcibly in his arms.
She recoiled, but her eyes shone. "I am yours," she said, "when you will! Do you not know it? But, for the present, listen. I have a husband, but I have also a lover. A lover of whom"--she continued more slowly, marking with joy how he started at the word--"my lord and master has no need to be jealous. He has not touched of me more than the tips of my fingers; yet if I raise but those fingers he has spears and to spare--five hundred and five hundred to that!--and I have but to play the laggard a little, and dangle a hope, and they dance to my piping."
He understood. A deep flush tinged the brown of his lean face. "You have brought," he said, "the Duke to parley."
"To parley!" She pointed superbly to the floor. "Nay, but to my feet! What will you of him? Spears, his good word, his intercession with the King, a post? Name what you will, and it shall be yours."
He looked at her shrewdly, with a new admiration, a new and stronger esteem. Already she filled the place which she had claimed, already she was to him what she had prayed to be. "You are sure?" he said.
"In a week, had I not loved you, I had had him and his Duchy, and all those spears! And mills and manors and lordships and governments, all had been mine, sir! Mine, had I wished this man; mine, had I been willing to take him! But I"--letting her arms fall by her sides and standing submissive before him--"am more faithful than my master!"
He stood staring at her. "But if this be so," he said at last, his brows coming together, "what of it? How does it help us? You are now my wife?"