'Then my ladies shall seek for yours the comforts of a discomfortable lodging.

I am sorry I have no better.' The Queen-Mother nodded her people out of the room; so she and Jehane were left alone together.
'Mistress,' said the Queen-Mother, 'what is this between you and my son?
Playing and kissing are to be left below the degrees of a throne.

Let there be no more of it.

Do you dare, are you so hardy in the eyes, as to look up to a kingly seat, or measure your head for a king's crown ?' Jehane had plenty of spirit, which a very little of this sort of talk would have fanned into a flame; but she had irony too.
'Madame, alas!' she said, with a hint of shrugging; 'if I have worn the Count's cap I know the measure of my head.' The Queen-Mother took her by the wrist 'My girl,' said she, 'you know very well that you are no Countess at all in my son's right, but are what one of your nurture should not be.

And you shall understand that I am a plain-dealer in such affairs when they concern this realm, and have bled little heifers like you whiter than veal and as cold as most of the dead; and will do it again if need be.' Jehane did not flinch nor turn her eyes from considering her whitening wrist.
'Oh, Madame,' she says, 'you will never bleed me; I am quite sure of that.