On the next morning, while the lord is away hunting in the woods, Sir Gawain receives a pleasant wake up call from the most beautiful lady. To his astonishment and disbelief, he finds an unlikely visitor in his room, the lord's wife! Apparently she seizes the moment while her husband is away and sneaks into Gawain's room:
And she stepped stealthily, and stole to his bed, Cast aside the curtain and came within, And set herself softly on the bedside there, And lingered at her leisure, to look on his waking. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 1191-1194.
The fair lady
then tries her best to seduce the young knight. She praises Sir Gawain
from head to toe and informs him that all the servants are asleep and
the door to Sir Gawain's chamber is "drawn and held by a well-driven bolt,"
implying it is safe for them to be together (1233). But Sir Gawain acts
like a true gentleman and politely rebuffs the lady's advances. He does,
however, receive a kiss from the pleasant intruder.
At this time, the lord hunts a deer down in the forest. When the lord comes home from the hunt, he gives the game, a deer, to Sir Gawain, just as it was agreed upon the night before. Sir Gawain stays true to his part of the contract as well:
'What I worthily have won within these fair walls, Herewith I as willingly award it to you.' He embraces his broad neck with both his arms, And confers on him a kiss in the comeliest style. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 1386-1389.
We see from the above passage just how honest Sir Gawain is. He keeps his word to the fullest. Although one might be ashamed to repay a lavish gift of deer with something as trivial and embarrassing as a kiss, Sir Gawain bestows the kiss upon the lord even though it seems as if it would have been easier to keep the kiss a secret.