She trusts it does not irk thee
to wait so long." Whereto the scholar, supposing that 'twas true, made
answer:--"Tell my lady to give herself no anxiety on my account, until
she can conveniently come to me, but to do so as soon as she may."
Whereupon the maid withdrew from the window, and went to bed; while the
lady said to her lover:--"Now, what sayst thou? Thinkst thou that, if I
had that regard for him, which thou fearest, I would suffer him to tarry
below there to get frozen?" Which said, the lady and her now partly
reassured lover got them to bed, where for a great while they disported
them right gamesomely, laughing together and making merry over the
luckless scholar.
The scholar, meanwhile, paced up and down the courtyard to keep himself
warm, nor indeed had he where to sit, or take shelter: in this plight he
bestowed many a curse upon the lady's brother for his long tarrying, and
never a sound did he hear but he thought that 'twas the lady opening the
door. But vain indeed were his hopes: the lady, having solaced herself
with her lover until hard upon midnight, then said to him:--"How ratest
thou our scholar, my soul? whether is the greater his wit, or the love I
bear him, thinkst thou? Will the cold, that, of my ordaining, he now
suffers, banish from thy breast the suspicion which my light words the
other day implanted there?" "Ay, indeed, heart of my body!" replied the
lover, "well wot I now that even as thou art to me, my weal, my
consolation, my bliss, so am I to thee.
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