"I cannot marry you," he protested. "You are the executioner's daughter."
Now, indeed, the warm color of her cheeks grew warmer and her eyes darkened with indignation.
"My father is a good and honest man, but were I the child of a robber, were I a fosterling of a wolf of the woods, I am a woman--the woman you say you love."
Robert waved her words away disdainfully, peevishly.
Perpetua's cheeks paled and her lips quivered a little, and her eyes were moist beneath their lowered lids, but she answered him as firmly as before and more sadly.
"Good-bye, then. I am not sorry you came, for I cherish sweet thoughts of you, but I shall be glad to see you go."
She turned as if to glide into the woods, but Robert stayed her, calling to her in a voice of loud command.
"I will not lose you!" he cried. "If I cannot win you as the simple hunter, I will command you as the King. I am Robert of Sicily."
As he spoke he slipped the green mantle from his arms and shoulders, flung it from him, and stood before her in the royal garments of the King. Perpetua gazed in astonishment at the rich habit, at splendor such as she had never seen.
Robert answered proudly, confident now of reward.
Perpetua looked on him with the same fearless honor wherewith she would have faced some monster in the forest.
"If you are the King, what have you to do with me?" she asked.
Robert answered her joyously, passionately.
"You shall be my loveliest mistress now, my loveliest memory forever." But even as he spoke the fire in his blood was chilled by the scorn and wrath in Perpetua's eyes.
"God pity and God pardon you," she prayed. "You are called Robert the Bad by honest men. Be called so always by clean women!" Her outstretched right hand seemed to hurl her imprecation into his brain. Blind fury seized upon him.
"You play the fool with me!" he said, and advanced upon her only to recoil as she slipped her hand to her girdle and drew the long, keen knife that rested there.
"Keep away from me!" she warned him. "For I am strong and young, and I might kill you." Her face was pitifully pale now in its great sorrow, but the determination in her eyes menaced more than steel.
"I think I could master you," Robert sneered, but he kept his place, watching her.