Igraine had sudden insight into the core of Gorlois’s nature. She understood, in a vague, swift way, what primæval instincts were hid in him ready at the beck of baser feelings such as jealousy or smitten pride. Woman-like, she recoiled from a man whose strength was so inflexible that it owned no pity or leavening kindness where malice or anger was concerned. She loved strength, and the natural wrath of a man, but she had no touch of the Semiramis about her, and her heart could not echo Gorlois’s wolf-like cry.
The rowers had turned the barge, and they were soon back again under the shadows of the trees. It was dim and ghostly with the onrush of night, while a faint fire flickered through the trees from the west and touched the sullen water with a reddish flame. Gorlois’s face was in the shadow. He was leaning over the tiller towards Igraine, and his eyes seemed to burn out upon her face and to make her heart beat faster. She sat as much away from him as the gunwale suffered, and looked ahead over the misty river, or up into the dense, black bosoms of the trees.
The foamy rush of the oars and the grind of the looms in the rowlocks half drowned Gorlois’s words as he spoke to her.
“Igraine.”
“My lord.”
“You have read me to the heart.”
Igraine turned and looked him full in the face. Now that the brunt had come, she was strong and ready to tell the man the truth, though it might be bleak and bitter to his pride. Gorlois was very near her, and she could see his white teeth between his lips, and the glint of his eyes as he leant towards her in the shadows.
“Are you ambitious, Igraine?”
“No, my lord.”
“Not even a little?”