“Oh, I trust I have more generosity than to quarrel with him,” rather contemptuously returned De Echingham, who, as every one present knew, had as little physical courage as any girl.
“Make thyself easy,” was the answer of De Chaucombe, as he walked away. “I should not think of running the risk.”
“What risk?” demanded Barkeworth, laughing. De Chaucombe looked back over his shoulder, and discharged a Parthian dart.
“The risk of turning my good Damascus blade on a toad,” said he, to the great amusement of Barkeworth.
De Chaucombe went to the end of the balcony, descended the steps which led to the ground floor, and came on a second terrace, also fronting the river. As he turned a corner of the house he suddenly confronted two people, who were walking slowly along the terrace, and conversing in hushed tones. Sir Piers Ingham was evidently and deeply interested, his head slightly bowed towards Clarice who was as earnestly engaged in the dissection of one of the few leaves which Christmas had left fluttering on the garden bushes. As De Chaucombe approached she looked up with a startled air, and blushed to her eyes.
De Chaucombe muttered something indistinct which might pass for “Good evening,” and resumed his path rather more rapidly than before.
“So the wind blows from that direction!” he said to himself. “Well, it does not matter a straw to me. But what our amiable mistress will say to the fair Clarice, when she comes to know of it, is another question. I do believe that, if she had made up her mind to a match between them, she would undo it again, if she thought they wished it. It would be just like her.”
It had never occurred to Clarice to suppose that she did anything wrong in thus disobeying point blank the known orders of her mistress that the bower-maidens were to hold no intercourse whatever with the gentlemen of the household. She knew perfectly well that if the Countess saw her talking to Sir Piers, she would be exceedingly angry; and she knew that her parents fully intended and expected her to obey her mistress as she would themselves. Poor Clarice’s code of morals looked upon discovery, not disobedience, as the thing to be dreaded; and while she would have recoiled with horror from the thought of unfaithfulness to her beloved, she looked with absolute complacency on the idea of disloyalty to the mistress whom she by no means loved. How could she do otherwise when she had never been taught better?
Clarice’s standard was loyauté d’amour. It is the natural standard of all men, the only difference being in the king whom they set up. A vast number are loyal to themselves only, for it is themselves whom alone they love. Fewer are loyal to some human being; and poor humanity being a very fallible thing, they often make sad shipwreck. Very few indeed—in comparison of the mass—are loyal to the King who claims and has a right to their hearts’ best affections. And Clarice was not one of these.
Inside the house the Countess and Mistress Underdone were very busy indeed. Before them, spread over forms and screens, lay piles of material for clothing—linen, serge, silk, and crape, of many colours. On a leaf-table at the side of the room a number of gold and silver ornaments were displayed. Furs were heaped upon the bed, boots and loose slippers stood in a row in one corner; while Mistress Underdone was turning over for her mistress’s inspection a quantity of embroidered neckerchiefs.