She turned Denise’s face to hers and kissed her.
“That was a clean kiss,” she said, “and by its cleanness I’ll swear that beldam Ursula lied. What of Messire Aymery? A man, child, a rock man with an arm that can smite. Grace be with me, but he would have given you his own heart to mend your broken one. I spoke with him, and I know.”
Denise lay at rest in Marpasse’s lap.
“Why should Ursula have lied?” she asked.
“Why do dogs eat grass, and vomit? What! I know the woman, eyes that see the point of a pin and miss the moon, and a tongue like a clacker in a cherry tree. Love is lord of all, my dear, and what does that beldam know of love? Messire Aymery had his heart in his mouth that night. I judge that he let the old crow peck at it, and she took the pieces and poisoned them, and pushed them into your mouth. Go to now! Have a little faith.”
She looked into Denise’s eyes and saw a change in them. A more dewy and credulous April had followed a dry and stormy March. Marpasse’s hand had stopped the former wound. She was healing the wound now in Denise’s soul.
“God grant that you are right, Marpasse.”
“Better, my dear, better. Lie in my arms and think them a man’s, and that man as honest as ever loved a woman. May I die in a ditch if I am mistaken! And now, what’s to do, as the sluggard says when all the rest have been three hours a-mowing.”
Denise slipped out of Marpasse’s lap, and sat down close to her, but not so close that their bodies touched. This act of hers seemed to betray that she had come by her stronger self again. Marpasse’s scolding had set her upon her feet.
“I shall stay with you,” she said simply.