Among the crowd which thickly gathers on the parterre, a tall man of imposing figure, habited in a Venetian dress of yellow satin and wrapped in a cloak of the same colour, paces up and down. He is alone and impatient. He wears a red mask; conspicuous on his right shoulder is a knot of blue and silver ribbons. As each boat approaches to discharge its gay freight upon the bank he eagerly advances and mixes with the company. Then, as though disappointed, he returns into the shadow thrown by the portico of a shell grotto. Wearied with waiting, he seats himself upon the turf. “She will not come!” he says, and then sinks back against a tree and covers his face with his hands. The fountains throw up columns of fiery spray; the soft music sighs in the distance; crowds of fluttering maskers pace up and down the plots of smooth grass or linger on the terrace—still he sits and waits.
A soft hand touches him, and a sweet voice whispers, “Eternal love!” It is the Princess, who, disguised in a black domino procured by Charlotte de Presney, has escaped from the Queen-mother and stands before him.
For an instant she unmasks and turns her lustrous eyes upon him.
Henri de Guise (for it is he) leaps to his feet. He kneels before her and kisses her hands. “Oh! my Princess, what condescension!” he murmurs, in a low voice. “I trembled lest I had been too bold. I feared that my letter had not reached you.”
A gay laugh answers his broken sentences.
“My cousin, will you promise to take on your soul all the lies I have told my mother in order to meet you?”
“I will absolve you, madame.”
“Ah, my cousin, I have ill news! My mother and the King are determined to marry me to the King of Navarre.”
“Impossible!” exclaims the Duke; “it would be sacrilege!”
“Oh, Henry!” replies the Princess, in a pleading voice, and laying her hand upon his arm, “my cousin, bravest among the brave, swear by your own sword that you will save me from this detestable heretic!”