My first impulse upon hearing him tell of the wager had been to
stride into the room and silence him by my coming. That I did not
obey that impulse was something that presently I was very bitterly
to regret. How it came that I did not I scarcely know. I was
tempted, perhaps, to see how far this henchman whom for years I had
trusted was unworthy of that trust. And so, there in the porch, I
stayed until he had ended by telling the company that he was on his
way to inform the King - who by great good chance was that day
arrived in Toulouse - of the mistake that had been made, and thus
obtain my immediate enlargement and earn my undying gratitude.
Again I was on the point of entering to administer a very stern
reproof to that talkative rogue, when of a sudden there was a
commotion within. I caught a scraping of chairs, a dropping of
voices, and then suddenly I found myself confronted by Roxalanne de
Lavedan herself, issuing with a page and a woman in attendance.
For just a second her eyes rested on me, and the light coming through
the doorway at her back boldly revealed my countenance. And a very
startled countenance it must have been, for in that fraction of time
I knew that she had heard all that Rodenard had been relating. Under
that instant's glance of her eyes I felt myself turn pale; a shiver
ran through me, and the sweat started cold upon my brow. Then her
gaze passed from me, and looked beyond into the street, as though
she had not known me; whether in her turn she paled or reddened I
cannot say, for the light was too uncertain.
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