Think you I have never listened to true men?
Do not I, Ysolinde of Plassenburg, know the sound of words that have the heart behind them?
I have heard you speak such yourself.

Do not insult me then with platitudes, nor try to divert me with the piping of children in the market-place.

I will not dance to them, nor yet, like a foolish kitchen-wench, smile at the jingling of your trinketry." "Your Highness--" I began again.
She waved her hand as if putting a light thing away.
"I was a woman to you before you knew that I was a Princess," she said; "you need not forget that I am a woman still, cursed with the plate-mail of rank added to the weariness and inaction of a woman's breaking heart." I grew acutely conscious that I was not distinguishing myself in this interview.

So I dashed again at the wall, and this time, for a moment at least, overbore interruption.
"Ysolinde, my dear lady," I said to her, "you are the Prince's and my good master's wife.

And if I have stood aloof, it is that I wished that he should have the companionship which one day I desire to find for myself--and also that I might always have the right to look straight into my master's eyes." "Now you talk like a silly prating priestling," she said.