“I choose to stay. You brought me here, and if it must be that I should go, you must put me out even as you brought me in.”
They stood, measuring each other, Isoult’s red mouth smiling provocation. Fulk fell to frowning because some strange emotion stirred in him, a fierce young wonder that had stumbled of a sudden upon this woman’s comeliness. Her audacity seemed to beat its wings and to soar against his pride, and her eyes had all the luring gloom of the woods.
“Come; I have no desire to be rough, Isoult.”
“Ah, but a man’s roughness——”
Isoult, looking beyond Fulk, saw Margaret Ferrers standing in the doorway.
“Fulk, do we wait for this woman?”
He stood back with a sweep of the arm.
“Come, let us waste no more words.”
Dame Margaret’s mouth sneered, but her eyes were afraid of Isoult’s. She stood there menacingly, as though longing to utter the one word—“harlot.”
Isoult’s chin went up.