“Make it ready—flowers, candles, linen. Be quick.”
They were quick. Feet ran, hands flew, while the duke and his duchess stood waiting in the room in which a king had slept and a prince had died, and which for a hundred years had stood empty of life, save when some awed visitor tiptoed across the threshold, marvelling at its more than royal beauty—its walls stretched with velvet blue and deep as night, its painted beams, its hooded fireplace, its great bed around which the velvet curtains swept, brave with their golden Tudor roses; quick hands now brought other roses, wine-red in silver bowls, to sweeten the air, and sticks of wood to light a fire to warm it, for even August turned chilly in that magnificence; they spread a gay feast before the flames and fine linen on the bed; they brought high candelabra wrought of silver, more of them and more of them, until the shadows wavered and danced, and the new duchess clapped her hands and danced, too.
“That enough?” the duke asked her.
“Oh, ’tis enough to light the way from here to the pole! I’d not have said there were so many candles in all the world.”
“Right,” said the duke to his servitors briefly. “That’s all, then. Good-night.”
And the quick hands and the quick feet were gone, and the duke was left alone with his duchess.
“It’s not too cold?” he asked.
“No, no!” she said. “It’s fine and warm.”
“It’s not too dark?”
“No, no—it’s fine and bright!”