John made to slip in also he thought there must be an end of it. He tapped the young man on the shoulder.

'Brother, a word with you,' says he; and John came twittering back. The two were alone in the tent.

This John—Sansterre, Landlos, Lackland, so they variously called him—was a timid copy of his brother, a wry-necked reedy Richard with a sniff. Not so tall, yet more spare, with blue eyes more pallid than his brother's, and protruding where Richard's were inset, the difference lay more in degree than kind. Richard was of heroic build, but a well-knit, well-shaped hero; in John the arms were too long, the head too small, the brow too narrow. Richard's eyes were perhaps too wide apart; no doubt John's were too near together. Richard twitched his fingers when he was moved, John bit his cheek. Richard stooped from the neck, John from the shoulders. When Richard threw up his head you saw the lion; John at bay reminded you of a wolf in a corner. John snarled at such times, Richard breathed through his nose. John showed his teeth when he was crossed, Richard when he was merry. So many thousand points of unlikeness might be named, all small: the Lord knows here are enough. The Angevin cat-and-dog nature was fairly divided between these two. Richard had the sufficiency of the cat, John the dependence of a dog; John had the cat's secretiveness, Richard the dog's dash. At heart John was a thief.

He feared and hated his brother; so when Richard said, 'Brother, a word with you,' John tried to disguise apprehension in disgust. The result was a very sick smile.

'Willingly, dear brother, and the more so—' he began; but Richard cut him short.

'What under the light of the sky is the matter with that lady?' he asked him.

John had been preparing for that. He raised his eyebrows and splayed out both his hands. 'Can you ask? Eh, our Lord! Emotion—a stranger in a strange land—an access of the shudders—who knows women? So long from France-dreadful of her brother—dreadful of you—so many things! a silly mind—ah, my brother!'

Richard checked him testily. 'Put a point, put a point, you drown me in phrases; your explanations explain nothing. One more word. What in the devil's name is she doing in there?' He had a short way. John began to stammer.

'A second father—a tender guardian—'

'Pish!' said Count Richard, and turned to leave the pavilion. Prince John slipped through the curtains, and at that moment Richard heard a little fretful cry within, not the cry of mortal lady. 'What under heaven have they got in there, this family?' he asked himself. Shrugging, he went out into the fresh air.

The abbot notes that his lord and master came running into his quarters, 'and tumbled upon me, like a lover who finds his mistress after many days. "Milo, Milo, Milo," he began to cry, three times over, as if the name helped him, "Thou wilt live to see a puddock upon the throne of England!" Thus he strangely said.'