“Yes!” answers the servitor, proud of the grandeur of his house. “We have for the entertainment of our guests, rederykers from Ghent who will give us declamation and farce, two gipsy girls imported from Andalusia, our own court fool to make us merry, also the daughter of the ex-burgomaster, who will dance for us in her father’s highest-priced silks. I shall contrive to get into the hall to see her prance; the Flemish wench has very [[31]]pretty ankles, and the airs of a countess,” guffaws the fellow.
But he says naught of the lady of the barge, and, the meal being finished, the table is cleared by several flunkies in gorgeous liveries, the resources of the house being apparently princely.
“Odds doubloons!” soliloquizes the young man, watching the last of the lackeys disappear. “The Countess de Mansfeld’s hospitality is very taking!”
Then a sudden coldness flies through his veins, in spite of the generous wine, as he remembers that he is eating the salt of the Spaniard in the Citadel of Antwerp.
But now suddenly the cold jumps from his body; he springs up with a start, his eyes gazing for one moment in rapture and admiration, and the next in a kind of dazed surprise, his hand seeking his breast feeling something beneath his satin doublet as if to be sure that it is really there.
For a girlish form of wondrous beauty and grace, with the fair skin and deep, lustrous, languid, but vivacious eyes, peculiar to the purest blood and highest loveliness of Castile, arrayed in evening dress, of velvet court train and shimmering silk and lace stomacher, that shows ivory shoulders and arms, stands before him, and the soft voice that has charmed him all this night in a mixture of coquetry and shyness says: “I thought you might like to see the face of her whom to-night you saved from the Dutch pirates!” Then she laughs lightly and murmurs: “If they had only known who I was I suppose the Flemish outlaws would have cut my throat,” giving a little gesture across the white ivory column that supports her lovely head, “before even you could have recaptured me.”
“Who under heaven can she be?” gasps Guy to himself, clutching again at his bosom. “She is the lady of the miniature, but who—WHO?”
But surprise and admiration are not all on his side.
As he rises the lady standing before him sees a gallant, well-knit figure of six feet in height, stalwart shoulders, strong arms, active, lithe body; above all this a face of manly determination, bronzed by weather, [[32]]giving almost the appearance of a brunette to a fair Saxon cheek, though this is contradicted by light chestnut hair, blue, but determined eyes, and a fair drooping mustache, which conceals a mouth remarkable for its firmness. Altogether a manly man—one fitted to make a woman’s heart beat a thousand to the minute; one fitted to love like a troubadour and fight like a paladin for what he wanted in this world, and standing a very good chance to get it; one who, at all events, for this evening, makes the blood of the lady who faces him rush very warmly through her veins, and brings even a greater brightness to her eyes, though these were bright enough before.
Not that she has never seen handsome men, for most of the Spanish chivalry of her age have bowed before her. But this new type, this Anglo-Saxon manliness, this wealth of brawn, these great big honest English eyes, this boy’s forehead and man’s face, make her heart beat a little differently than ever dark-eyed Spanish grandee or soft mustachioed Italian cavalier or knight of France or stolid Netherland noble had made it beat before.