Yet indeed many had said with Clement that the Queen who sat there
was the goodliest part thereof.
Now she spake to Clement and said: "Hail, merchant!
Is this the young knight of whom thou tellest, he who seeketh his
beloved that hath been borne away into thralldom by evil men?"
"Even so," said Clement. But Ralph spake: "Nay, Lady,
the damsel whom I seek is not my beloved, but my friend.
My beloved is dead."
The Queen looked on him smiling kindly, yet was her face somewhat troubled.
She said: "Master chapman, thy time here is not over long for all that thou
hast to do; so we give thee leave to depart with our thanks for bringing
a friend to see us. But this knight hath no affairs to look to:
so if he will abide with us for a little, it will be our pleasure."
So Clement made his obeisance and went his ways. But the Queen bade
Ralph sit before her, and tell her of his griefs, and she looked
so kindly and friendly upon him that the heart melted within him,
and he might say no word, for the tears that brake out from him,
and he wept before her; while she looked on him, the colour coming
and going in her face, and her lips trembling, and let him weep on.
But he thought not of her, but of himself and how kind she was to him.
But after a while he mastered his passion and began, and told her
all he had done and suffered. Long was the tale in the telling,
for it was sweet to him to lay before her both his grief and his hope.
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