Although she was keeping herself concealed at the time, the two knights found means to come to her. She was much ashamed and vexed to see them, as she well knew she would hear nothing pleasant from them, but she plucked up her courage, and put on the best countenance she could.
They began by talking of various matters; and then the good knight of Flanders began his tirade, and called her all the names he could think of.
“You are,” he said, “the most shameful and depraved woman in the world, and you have shown the wickedness of your heart by abandoning yourself to a low villain of a waggoner; although many noble persons offered you their services and you refused them all. For my own part, you know what I did to gain your love, and was I not more deserving of reward than a rascally waggoner who never did anything for you?”
“I beg of you, monsieur,” she replied, “to say no more about it—what is done cannot be undone—but I tell you plainly that if you had come at the moment when the waggoner did, that I would have done for you what I did for him.”
“Is that so?” he said. “By St. John! he came at a lucky moment! Devil take it! why was I not so fortunate as to know the right time to come.”
“Truly,” she said, “he came just at the moment when he ought to have come.”
“Oh, go to the devil!” he cried, “your moments, and you, and your waggoner as well.”
And with that he left, and his friend followed him, and they never had anything more to do with her,—and for a very good reason.