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Page 300
It was not so dreadful a thing to love one's wife when that wife loved in return. What was in Joanna's eyes when she looked at him?
He had come full round to the beginning and he had even less comfort for it. Now he understood his own trouble, but he was no closer to Joanna's. She sought me in the teeth of the fire, he told himself. If that was not loveno matter how idioticwhat was? Then why did she turn cold as ice the next day, acting as politely indifferent as if he were a casual guest passing through her house that she never expected to see again? No matter how he turned that question he could find no answer to it. In disgust, he swore he would think no more of it nor of Joanna, and set about planning in his mind what he would tell the king. When he thought of the fire, of the scenes of devastation and leaping flames, these were swiftly overlaid by the fiery tones of Joanna's hair spread on the pillows. Geoffrey groaned and cursed at himself to no avail. Before he knew it, he was treading the same round track of questions that had no answers.
The painful cycle was broken at last when Geoffrey finally found the king. It had not been quick or easy. When he liked, John could move about his kingdom with disconcerting swiftness and the destination he stated to his hosts in the morning upon leaving was not always the resting place he stopped in the evening. Early in his reign, such deviations from plan had usually been the innocent result of a massage that summoned the king from his path or an unexpected diversion to take advantage of a hunt for a great boar or a great stag that had been noted nearby. At this time, however, the detours were more frequent and more often the result of a sudden suspicion that rose in John's mind or an ugly desire to catch a subject unaware so that he could be fined or punished for some failure of duty.
No fewer than four times had Geoffrey gone off on the wrong track and needed to retrace his steps and start anew. It was nearly the end of July before he was able to give John

 
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