" The Lady looked at her grimly,
and said: "I understand thy jeer; thou meanest that he will not
be moved by me, he being so fair, and I being but somewhat fair.
Wilt thou have me beat thee? Nay, I will send thee to the White
Pillar when we come home to Utterbol."
The woman smiled again, and said: "My Lady, when thou hast sent
me to the White Pillar, or the Red, or the Black, my stripes
will not mend the matter for thee, or quench the fear of thine
heart that by this time, since he is a grown man, he loveth
some other. Yet belike he will obey thee if thou command,
even to the lying in the same bed with thee; for he is a thrall."
The Lady hung her head, but Agatha went on in her sweet clear voice:
"The Lord will think little of it, and say nothing of it unless
thou anger him otherwise; or unless, indeed, he be minded to pick
a quarrel with thee, and hath baited a trap with this stripling.
But that is all unlike: thou knowest why, and how that he loveth
the little finger of that new-come thrall of his (whom ye left
at home at Utterbol in his despite), better than all thy body,
for all thy white skin and lovely limbs. Nay, now I think of it,
I deem that he meaneth this gift to make an occasion for the staying
of any quarrel with thee, that he may stop thy mouth from crying
out at him--well, what wilt thou do? he is a mighty Lord."
The Lady looked up (for she had hung her head at first), her face
all red with shame, yet smiling, though ruefully, and she said:
"Well, thou art determined that if thou art punished it
shall not be for naught.
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