Messire, I tell you that for
your soul's health I doubly mean to kill you now. So let us make an end
of this."
De Gatinais turned and took up his sword. "Since you will have it," he
rather regretfully said; "yet I reiterate that you play an absurd part.
Your wife has deserted you, has fled in abhorrence of you. For three
weeks she has been tramping God knows whither or in what company--"
He was here interrupted. "What the Lady Ellinor has done," Prince Edward
crisply said, "was at my request. We were wedded at Burgos; it was
natural that we should desire our reunion to take place at Burgos; and
she came to Burgos with an escort which I provided."
De Gatinais sneered. "So that is the tale you will deliver to the
world?"
"After I have slain you," the Prince said, "yes."
"The reservation is wise. For if I were dead, Messire Edward, there
would be none to know that you risk all for a drained goblet, for an
orange already squeezed--quite dry, messire."
"Face of God!" the Prince said.
But de Gatinais flung back both arms in a great gesture, so that he
knocked a flask of claret from the table at his rear.
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