Pausing abruptly, she put her hood well back, and stood as though determined to provoke him into taking her challenge. Fulk swung round as the moon cleared the cloud, and saw her white face claiming him as a regarder. Her hair, black as charcoal, was fastened up in a net of some silvery stuff that shone like gossamer on a hedgerow. It was a face of ivory—clear, keen, with eyes that glimmered under straight, black eyebrows. The mouth was long, mobile, audacious. The nose, slightly curved at the bridge, had proud, fine-spirited nostrils. It was a face that could be fierce, contemptuous, yet passionately eager, heroic, wicked, adorable by turns. She held herself as though she could hold the whole world at her service, and had never found herself in a mood to be mastered by any man.
Fulk stared—beyond his expectations. Something flashed a subtle provocation before him, menacingly, temptingly. The chin in air was railing and audacious. The dark eyes glittered at his grave face.
“Am I young or old?”
“I can see no wrinkles by this light.”
“Fair to behold and beholden to no man. I have made fools of them by the score—yes, I! Isoult of the Rose. I go where I please and when I please, and no man has my heart. I am desired—and I desire not. I ask, and am obeyed. Go to, now; you will grant me my desire?”
“To go where you please?”
“Even so.”
He looked at her steadily, as though holding his manhood to the flame of her audacious comeliness.
“It is to be where—I please.”
“So you say.”