"You are the one man I should have delighted to call master, to have done your bidding.

That had been a thing different indeed! But you love me not.

You love a chit, a chitterling--a pretty thing that can but peep and mutter, whose heart's depths I have sounded with my finger-nail, and whose babyish vanity I have tickled with a straw." This was enough and too much.
"Madam," said I, "the clear stars are not fouled by throwing filth at them, nor yet the Lady Helene--whom I do acknowledge that with all my heart I love--by the speaking of any ill words.

You do but wrong yourself, most noble lady.

For your heart tells you other things, both of the maid I love and of me that am her true servant, and, if I might, your true friend." The Princess reached out her hand, looking, not with anger, but rather wistfully at me, like a mother at a son who goes to his death with blasphemy on his lips.
"Forgive me," she said, gently.