Her face was pale, and her eyes
red with weeping.
She filled a cup of wine, and one of her maids offered it to the stranger.
He put it back, courteously, but firmly. "Not from your hand," said he.
A growl against his bad manners rose straightway; and the minstrel, who
(as often happened in those days) was jester likewise, made merry at his
expense, and advised the company to turn the wild beast out of the hall.
"Silence, fool!" said the Princess. "Why should he know our west-country
ways? He may take it from my hand, if not from hers."
And she held out to him the cup herself.
He took it, looking her steadily in the face; and it seemed to the
minstrel as if their hands lingered together round the cup-handle, and
that he saw the glitter of a ring.
Like many another of his craft before and since, he was a vain, meddlesome
vagabond, and must needs pry into a secret which certainly did not concern
him.
So he could not leave the stranger in peace: and knowing that his
privileged calling protected him from that formidable fist, he never
passed him by without a sneer or a jest, as he wandered round the table,
offering his harp, in the Cornish fashion, to any one who wished to play
and sing.
"But not to you, Sir Elf-locks: he that is rude to a pretty girl when she
offers him wine, is too great a boor to understand my trade.
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