Alixe regarded him with half-closed eyes. Never had she resented anything in him half so much as this question. Yet she replied to him in a tone as smooth as his own: “Yea, truly I am of Le Crépuscule, by heart and love. But I am not of the Twilight blood. I was born on the Castle lands. I am the foster-sister of the Demoiselle Laure.”
“Sooth, hast thou not heard of Laure, the daughter of madame?”
“Not for us here. Thou must know she is but newly consecrated; and she is to be permitted to come home, here, to the Castle, once in a fortnight, to see madame her mother. On the morrow she will come for the first time since her novitiate began, nine months agone.”
“Sang Dieu! Now know I why the Castle breathes with prayer. Madame would make all things holy enough to receive her. She cannot be old, this Laure, sith she is thy foster-sister?”
“I am older than she. Also, an I remain longer from the tapestry, I shall be caused to make you do half my daily task as a punishment for keeping me tardy. Give ye God-den, fair sir, and pleasant prayers!” And with a flutter and an unholy laugh, Alixe had whirled past him and was gone out of the chapel.
Flammecœur looked after her, but for the first time felt no inclination for pursuit. Perhaps this was because, for the first time, Alixe had given him something besides herself to think about. This daughter of Madame Eleanore and her peculiar vocation interested him extremely. It was quite surprising to find how interested one could become in little matters, after a few days in Le Crépuscule. So Flammecœur presently marched off to the armory in search of Yvain, and, finding him, he questioned the little squire minutely as to the gossip of the keep concerning the Demoiselle Laure. Was she mis-shapen? This was the only excuse for entering a nunnery that occurred to the Flame-hearted. Yvain had not heard that she was deformed. Was she crossed in love? Mayhap; but Yvain had not heard it. Flammecœur shrugged his shoulders. The enigma was not solved. It mattered little enough, anyway. Alixe had jilted him again. Heigho! He ordered his horse, and went to seek a falcon. While in the falcon-house he remembered that this nun was coming to the Castle on the morrow, and he decided that he would have a sight of her when she arrived.