By this time Gilles was mentally quite at his ease. If his thigh was painful, he had nevertheless managed to walk into Monseigneur's presence without a limp, and to all appearances his host was at this hour very far from suspecting the slightest fraud.
'His Highness,' he said lightly, 'will recover from his scratches within the next day or two. The whole matter is unworthy of Monseigneur's anxiety.'
After which assurance, and mutual protestations of esteem and good-will, Gilles was allowed to take his leave.
III
Being a personage of no consequence, Messire Gilles de Crohin, equerry to Monseigneur le Prince de Froidmont, was not escorted to the gates by an army of ushers; rather was he allowed to find his way out as best he could. The interview with Monseigneur had taken place in a room on a floor above, and he was walking slowly along one of the wide corridors which, if memory served him, would lead him to the grand staircase. On his right the tall, deep-embrasured windows gave on the magnificent park which, with its stately trees still dressed in winter garb, lay bathed in the sunlight of this early spring day.
He paused just for a moment, looking over the park at the rich panorama of the city. The window nearest to him was slightly open, and the south-westerly breeze was apparently stirring the heavy curtains in front of it. From somewhere close by there came gently wafted the delicious penetrating fragrance of lilies. Was it a wonder that Gilles' thoughts should at once have flown to Jacqueline? and that an uncontrollable ache should suddenly grip his heart?
Throughout his long adventurous life he had seen so many women—had kissed a few, and loved none; and now Fate had placed in his path just the one woman in the whole wide world whom at first sight he had loved with unbounded passion, and who was as far removed from him as was the gold-crowned steeple of St. Géry far away, and infinitely more unattainable. For the first time in his life Gilles had looked into a woman's eyes, felt that they held in their depths a promise of paradise, only to realize that that promise could never be made to him.
The scent of the lilies brought with it a murmur of spring, of awakening nature, of twitter of birds, and the man who listened to that murmur, who thrilled at its insistent call, knew that he must for ever remain lonely, that the call of springtide for him must for ever remain unsatisfied.
Standing there alone, he was not ashamed of his emotion, not ashamed that hot tears welled up involuntarily to his eyes. But with a half-impatient gesture and a smile at his own folly, he brushed these with his hand resolutely away.
When the mist of tears was cleared from his eyes, he suddenly saw her—his dream—standing before him. She was in the window embrasure, with the flood of sunshine wrapping her like a mantle of gold. On the window sill beside her lay a bunch of white lilies. Her little hand—Gilles thought he had never seen such an exquisite little hand—held back the curtain, behind which she had apparently been sitting. A soft breeze blew in through the half-open window and stirred with its delicate breath the soft tendrils of her ardent hair. Her face against the light was in a tender, grey shadow, through which her eyes shone like a peep of azure sky, and on her cheek that tiny mole was provocatively asking for a kiss.