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For mouth she had but a small red wound; and her throat was a tower builded of ivory." Moreover, she added, beauty was but a fleeting thing, and she considered it of little importance; and then she laughed again. Adhelmar took up the lute that lay beside them and fingered it for a moment, as though wondering of what he would rhyme. Afterward he sang for her as they sat in the gardens.
Having reached this conclusion, Adhelmar wheeled upon his men, and cursed them for tavern-idlers and laggards and flea-hearted snails, and bade them spur. Melite, at her window, heard them depart, and heard the noise of their going lapse into the bland monotony of the rain's noise. This dank night now divulged no more, and she turned back into the room.
Said Adhelmar: "I have read of her fairness in the chronicles of Messire Stace of Thebes, and of Dares, who was her husband's bishop. And she was very comely, neither too little nor too big; she was fairer and whiter and more lovely than any flower of the lily or snow upon the branch, but her eyebrows had the mischance of meeting. She had wide-open, beautiful eyes, and her wit was quick and ready.
"Ah, no, I shall not ever forget, O true and faithful lover! And, indeed, indeed, Adhelmar, I would give my life right willingly that yours might be saved!" She had almost forgotten Hugues. Her heart was sad as she thought of Adhelmar, who must die a shameful death for her sake, and of the love which she had cast away.
For the moment, perhaps, she had forgotten the feud which existed between Adhelmar and the Sieur d'Arques; but in any event, I am convinced, she knew that Adhelmar could refuse her nothing. So she ran toward him, her cheeks flushing arbutus-like, and she was smiling through her tears.
But by this time the dawn had come completely, flooding the room with its first thin radiance, and Melite saw the pallor of his face and so knew that he was wounded. "Indeed, yes," said Adhelmar, when she had questioned him, "for my breast is quite cloven through."
Melite smiled as she sang; for this was a song that Adhelmar had made for her upon a May morning at Nointel, before he was a knight, when both were very young. So now she smiled to remember the making of the verses which she sang while the October rain was beating about Puysange. Night-work
And when she disarmed him, Melite found a great cut in his chest which had bled so much that it was apparent he must die, whether d'Andreghen and Edward of England would or no. Melite wept again, and cried, "Why had you not told me of this?" "To have you heal me, perchance?" said Adhelmar.
Oh, thought Adhelmar, were it not very easy to leave Hugues to the dog's death he merits and to take this woman for my own? For I know that she loves me a little. And thinking of this, he kissed her, quietly, as one might comfort a sobbing child; afterward he held her in his arms for a moment, wondering vaguely at the pliant thickness of her hair and the sweet scent of it.
Adhelmar protested; "for the same Lady Venus was the fairest of women, as all learned clerks avow; and she is dead these many years, and now there is no woman left alive so beautiful as she saving one alone, and she will have none of me. And therefore," he added, very slowly, "I sigh for desire of Dame Venus and for envy of the knight Tannhaeuser."
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