“Done! Tell me about her.”
“I’ll do more. I’ll carry you in to her, here and at once. Tell me about her, quotha! She’s the Fair with Golden Hair, and a guinea and a suitor to every thread of it.”
“Whence comes she?”
“From Arcadia, man, with a fortune of gold and roses. She cuts out hearts raw, as you do steaks, and devours them by the dozen. O, you shall know her!”
“But by what name, George, by what name?”
“Have I not told you? It shall suffice for all your needs. Thou shalt take a pack of Cabriolles, and never hunt her to the death. Come, my friend!”
He led Sir Richard to the house, and had himself announced. They ascended a flight of stairs, going up into a heaven of floating fragrance and melodious sounds. Their feet moved noiseless over silken carpets. They crossed an anteroom ruffling with lackeys, and were ushered into the Fair’s boudoir.
She sat at her mirror, in the hands of her perruquier. She was the most beautiful insolent creature Sir Richard had ever seen. There was not an inch of her which Nature could have altered to its improvement. The very patch on her cheek was a theft from perfection. But to so much loveliness her hair was the glory, a nimbus which, condensing in the heavy atmosphere of adoration, dropped in a melting flood of gold, which, short of the ground only, shrank and curled back from its gross contact.
All round and about her hummed her court—poets, lords, minstrels—suitors straining their wits and their talents for her delectation, while they bled internally. Many of them greeted Sir Richard’s chaperon, many Sir Richard himself—good-humouredly, jealously, satirically, as the case might be—as the two pushed by. A stir went round, however, when the rough new-comer’s name was put about; and some rose in their seats, and all dwelt inquisitively on the explorer’s reception.
It was condescending enough; as was that of his friend, who loved himself too well, and too wittily, to show a heart worth the beauty’s discussing.