Messire Renaud made no answer beyond a laugh, and the Lady Queen quickly introduced a different subject. I fancy she saw that the Baron was losing his temper. But when Messire Renaud was about to take leave, Lady Judith arose, as quietly as she does everything, and glided to his side.
"Fair Sir," she said gently, "I pray you, pardon one word from an old woman. You know years should teach wisdom."
"Trust me, Lady, to listen with all respect," said he courteously.
"Fair Sir," she said, "when you stand face to face with death, you will find _It_ does not satisfy your need. You will want _Him_. You are not a thing, but a person. How can the thing produced be greater than that which produces it?"
"Your pardon, fair Lady and holy Mother!" interposed Messire Renaud quickly. "I do not object to designate the Unknowable Essence as Him. Far from it! I do but say, as the highest minds have said,--We cannot know. It maybe Him, It, Them:--we cannot know. We can but bow in illimitable adoration, and strive to perfect, to purify and enlighten, our minds, so that they shall grow nearer and nearer to that ineffable Possibility."
A very sad look passed over Lady Judith's face.
"My son," she said, "'if the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!' These are not my words, but His that died for thee."
And without another word, she glided back to her seat.
"Margot," said I, when she came to undress me, "is my body or my soul me?"
"To fall and bruise yourself, Damoiselle, would tell you the one," said she; "and to receive some news that grieved you bitterly would show you the other."
"Messire Renaud de Montluc says that only my soul is me; and that my body does not exist at all,--it only seems to be."
"Wait till he has fleshed his maiden sword," said Margot. "If he come into my Damoiselle's hands for surgery[#] with a broken leg and a sword-cut on the shoulder, let her ask him, when she has dressed them, whether his body be himself or not."
[#] All ladies were taught surgery, and practised it, at this date.
"Oh, he says that pain is only imagination," said I. "If he chose to imagine that he had no pain, it would stop."
"Very good," said Marguerite. "Then let him set his broken leg with his beautiful imagination. If he can cure his pain by imagining he has none, what must he be if he do not?"