"True," he exclaimed, rising quickly, "I was sent to amuse—"
"And you have found me a too exacting mistress?" she asked, more gently, checking the implied reproach.
"Exacting!" he repeated.
"What then?" she said, half sadly.
"Nothing," he answered.
But in his mind Jacqueline's scornful words reiterated themselves: "Think you the princess will wear the willow?"
Taking the book, he opened it at random, mechanically sinking at her feet. The quest, the idle quest! Was it but an awakening? So far lay the branch above his reach! His voice rose and fell with the mystic rhythm of the meter, now dwelling on death and danger, the shortness of life, the sweetness of passion; then telling the pleasures of the dance.
