" "So:" quoth the lady, "then I
must have full a thousand kisses from thee, to prove that thou sayst
sooth." The lover's answer was to strain her to his heart, and give her
not merely a thousand but a hundred thousand kisses. In such converse
they dallied a while longer, and then:--"Get we up, now," quoth the lady,
"that we may go see if 'tis quite spent, that fire, with which, as he
wrote to me daily, this new lover of mine used to burn." So up they got
and hied them to the lattice which they had used before, and peering out
into the courtyard, saw the scholar dancing a hornpipe to the music that
his own teeth made, a chattering for extremity of cold; nor had they ever
seen it footed so nimbly and at such a pace. Whereupon:--"How sayst thou,
sweet my hope?" quoth the lady. "Know I not how to make men dance without
the aid of either trumpet or cornemuse?" "Indeed thou dost my heart's
delight," replied the lover. Quoth then the lady:--"I have a mind that we
go down to the door. Thou wilt keep quiet, and I will speak to him, and
we shall hear what he says, which, peradventure, we shall find no less
diverting than the sight of him."
So they stole softly out of the chamber and down to the door, which
leaving fast closed, the lady set her lips to a little hole that was
there, and with a low voice called the scholar, who, hearing her call
him, praised God, making too sure that he was to be admitted, and being
come to the door, said:--"Here am I, Madam; open for God's sake; let me
in, for I die of cold.
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