But in Richard she was shy of the bleak isolation, the self-sufficing, the hard, chill core.

She dreaded it, yet it drew her; she was tempted to beat vainly at it for the passion's sake; and so in this case she dared to do.

She would cheerfully have killed the minion, but she dared the King first.
When she opened to him the matter of Don Sancho's letter, none knew better than Richard that the matter might have been good.

Yet he would have nothing to say to it.

'Madame,' his words were, 'this is an idle letter, if not impertinent.