CHAPTER XXIII
In the Princess’s chamber at the Wardrobe the real King sat on an oak hutch, kicking his heels against a panel upon which some craftsman had carved the Pelican in her Piety. The lad looked sulky and silent, or as though some inward pain were gnawing in him, the ache of his own shame.
Suddenly he started up, and went towards the door; but his mother, who had been kneeling at her prie-dieu, rose and put herself in his way.
“What would you, sweet son?”
There was less petulance and more manhood in his frown.
“Let me pass. I am the King. I’ll not suffer this upstart.”
“Son, he has done nobly.”
A furtive malice came into his eyes.
“I shall remember it—and him. Let me pass, mother. I go out to claim my own.”
This new spirit in him filled her with a secret exultation, but she kept her place by the door and would not let him come to it.