'God in Heaven!' sighed Jacqueline. 'I entreat Thee to protect him!'
The noise of the scuffle in the street became louder and louder. There were cries of rage as well as of pain. Blows were evidently raining freely—on whom? My God, on whom? Then, from further up the street, came the sound of running footsteps as well as the stern voice of the night watchmen hurrying to the scene. Jacqueline would have bartered some years of her life to see what was going on the other side of the wall. Only a minute or two had gone by: to the young girl it had seemed like hours of suspense. And now these people all rushing along, no doubt in order to give a hand to Pierre—to fall on the unarmed minstrel—to lay hands upon him—to belabour him with sticks—to wound or hurt him—to——
Jacqueline uttered a loud cry of horror. It was the echo of one of terror, of pain and of rage which came from the other side of the wall. The next moment a dark mass appeared over the top of the wall, silhouetted against the moonlit sky. To Jacqueline's straining eyes it seemed like the body of a man which, for the space of a brief second, seemed to hover in mid air and then fell with a dull thud upon the paving-stones of the courtyard below.
Jacqueline closed her eyes. She felt sick and faint. To her ears now came the sound of loud groans and vigorous curses. And then—oh, then!—loud laughter and the last bar of the interrupted song—a sound indeed which caused her at once to open her eyes again; whereupon she, too, could have laughed and sung for joy. The inert mass still lay in a heap at the foot of the wall; Jacqueline could vaguely discern its outline in the gloom, whilst up on the top of the wall, astride, hatless, lute in hand, sat the masked minstrel with his head turned gazing toward her window.
She clapped her hands with glee, and he, with a loud cry of 'Mignonne!' swung himself down from the wall and ran across the courtyard until he came to a halt just beneath her window, and even in the dim light of this wintry moon Jacqueline thought that she could see his eyes glowing through the holes in the mask.
It was all so joyous, so gay, so romantic; so different—ah! so very, very different—to the dreary monotony of Jacqueline's daily existence! This masked and unknown minstrel! His daring, his prowess, aye! his very impudence, which laughed at high walls and defied an army of varlets! There was Pierre moaning and groaning, disarmed and helpless, having been tossed over the wall just as if he were a bale of cumbersome goods! Serve him right well, too, for having dared to measure his valour against that of so proud a cavalier! Pierre was not hurt—oh, Jacqueline was quite sure that he was not hurt! Nothing, nothing whatever, was going to be wrong on this lovely, glorious evening! No! Pierre would soon be healed of his wounds; but it was ludicrous to see him stretched out just there, where he thought he could lay the noble singer low!
'Mignonne, allons voir si la rose,' sang the mysterious minstrel; and Jacqueline's young heart, which was filled with the joy of romance, the exquisite rapture of ideals, suddenly ached with a passionate longing for—for what? She did not know. She had had so many things in life: riches, beauty, adulation, aye! and the love of a man whom she loved in return. But now it seemed to her as if, in spite of all that, in spite of M. de Landas and his love, she had really lacked something all the time—something that was both undefinable and mystic and yet was intensely and vividly real, something that would fill her life, that would satisfy her soul and gladden her heart, in a way that M. de Landas' love, his passionate kisses, had never succeeded in doing hitherto.
And somehow all this longing, all this thirst for a still-unknown happiness, seemed personified in the singer with the tall, broad stature and the mellow voice; it was embodied in the honey-coloured moon, in the glints of silver and gold upon the steeples of Cambray, in the scent of the spring and the murmurs of the breeze. Jacqueline pressed her hands against her heart. She was so happy that she could have cried.
Beside her on the window-sill stood a tall vase fashioned of Dutch clay. It was filled with tall-stemmed Madonna lilies, which had been produced at great cost in the hot-houses belonging to her own estate in Hainault. Their powerful scent had filled the room with its fragrance. Without thought or hesitation, Jacqueline suddenly pulled the sheaf out of the vase and gathered the flowers in her arms. The tender, juicy stems were wet and she took her embroidered handkerchief out of her pocket and wrapped it round them; then she flung the whole sheaf of lilies out of the window and watched to see them fall, bruised and sweet-smelling, at the minstrel's feet.
Then, half-ashamed, laughing a little hysterically, but thoroughly happy and excited, she drew quickly back into the room and hastily closed the casement.