“Happily your Highness sees no beauty in looks that have the gloss of the raven, and eyes that have the hue of the violet.”
“No, I am a constant man, constant to one idea of beauty in a thousand forms,—eyes like the summer’s light-blue sky, and locks like its golden sunbeams! But to set thy mind at rest, Will, know that I have but compassionated the sickly state of the scholar, whom thou prizest so highly; and I have placed thy fair Sibyll’s chamber near her father’s. Young Lovell says thou art bent on wedding the wizard’s daughter.”
“And if I were, beau sire?”
Edward looked grave.
“If thou wert, my poor Will, thou wouldst lose all the fame for shrewd wisdom which justifies thy sudden fortunes. No, no; thou art the flower and prince of my new seignorie,—thou must mate thyself with a name and a barony that shall be worthy thy fame and thy prospects. Love beauty, but marry power, Will. In vain would thy king draw thee up, if a despised wife draw thee down!”
Hastings listened with profound attention to these words. The king did not wait for his answer, but added laughingly,—
“It is thine own fault, crafty gallant, if thou dost not end all her spells.”
“What ends the spells of youth and beauty, beau sire?”
“Possession!” replied the king, in a hollow and muttered voice.
Hastings was about to answer, when the door opened, and the officer in waiting announced the Duke of Clarence. “Ha!” said Edward, “George comes to importune me for leave to depart to the government of Ireland, and I have to make him weet that I think my Lord Worcester a safer viceroy of the two.”