"THE CUP TREMBLED AS AT THE VERY THOUGHT SHE SHUDDERED"
"I?" quoth Richard, wool-gathering.
The lady laughed at her indiscretion.
"You do well to ask. At times my father rails at me; 'Daughter, you open your mind to strangers like a casket.' Again I am silent, hidden, locked fast, as my mood alters. Be it so, I am the open casket to-night. I will speak it all forth. The saints grant I may dwell amongst you Franks; how much better to crush down a raging horse with one touch, than to know all the wisdom of Plato!"
"Why better?" asked the Norman, never taking his gaze from that face all rosy in the flickering light.
"Why?" her voice rose a little, and the brightness of the torches was in her eyes. "Let others con the musty parchments,—a thousand times better are the men who do, as you of the West,—than the weaklings who only know. Plato babbled foolishness describing his 'perfect nation,' for when he strove to realize it—failure!"
"These are riddles, sweet lady!" cried Richard; "who was this Plato—some pagan long since in hell?"
Whereat the princess began to laugh afresh; not offensively, but sweetly as a running brook; so that the other would have said a hundred witless things to make her continue. Then she answered, her eyes dancing, and Richard thought he saw the lips of the dreamy Spaniard twitch: "Yes, for all his mist-hung cobwebs, he must have broiled in no common fire. But I love better to talk of coursing and falconry; that science better befits a Christian!"
"St. Stephen!" blurted out the Norman, pricking his ears, "can you ride and hawk?"