But somehow I liked not the sight of them, or the path they took.

It seemed to me to bode ill to the maiden; and I longed to have my business with his Grace ended that I might return and be near the place where she was.
For three mortal hours, that forenoon, was I kept kicking my heels in his Grace's ante-chamber; and in the end was told curtly his Grace had no leisure at present for such business, and that I must come again on the morrow.

I own I spake disrespectfully of his Grace when they gave me this message, and was fain, on that account, to retreat from the precincts more hastily than most suitors are wont to do.

Here was another day wasted, and who was to say that the same put-off did not await me to-morrow?
It was late in the afternoon when I found myself again at the "Oriflame," and there I found mine host in a monstrous flutter, thinking I, too, had given him the slip without paying my account.

I made him happy on that score with the moiety of my gold piece, and thereby bound him to me for ever and a day.