Lower fell the princess' hand until it touched the reader's head; touched and lingered. Before the fool's eyes the letters of the book became blurred and then faded away. Doubt, misgiving, fear, vanished on the moment. The flower she had given him seemed to burn on his heart. He forgot the decree of the king; her equivocation; the unanswered question. Passionately he thrust his hand into his doublet.
"The rose and love are one," he cried. "The rose is—"
"Pardon me, Madam," said a voice, and Jacqueline, clear-eyed, calm, stood before them; "the fan was not in the king's ante-chamber, or I should have been here sooner. I trust you have not been put out for want of it?"
"Not at all, Jacqueline," returned her mistress, with a natural, tranquil movement, "although"—sharply—"you were gone longer than you should have been!"
CHAPTER VI
THE ARRIVAL OF THE DUKE
Proficient as a poet, bold as a soldier, adroit as a statesman, the king was, nevertheless, most fitted for the convivial role of host, and no part that he played in his varied repertoire afforded such opportunity for the nice display of his unusual talents. History hath sneered at his rhymes as flat, stale and unprofitable; upon the bloody field he had been defeated and subsequently imprisoned; clever in diplomacy, the sagacity of his opponent, Charles, had in truth overmatched him; yet as the ostentatious Boniface, in grand bib and tucker, prodigal in joviality and good-fellowship, his reputation rests without a flaw.
In anticipation of the arrival of the duke and his suite, the monarch had ordered a series of festivities and entertainments such as would gratify his desire for pageantry and display, and at the same time do honor to a guest who was to espouse one of France's fairest wards. To the castle repaired tailors, embroiderers and goldsmiths to make and devise garments for knights, ladies, lords and esquires and for the trapping, decking and adorning of coursers, jennets and palfries. Bales of silks and satins had been long since conveyed thither from distant Paris, in anticipation of the coming marriage; and the old Norman castle that had once resounded with the clashing of arms, the snap of the cross-bow and the clang of the catapult now echoed with the merry stir and flurry of peace; a bee-hive of activity wherein were no drones; marshal, grand master, chancellor and grand chamberlain preparing for mysteries and hunting parties; dowagers, matrons and maids making ready for balls and other pastimes.
With this new influx of population to the pleasure palace came a plentiful sprinkling of wayside minstrels, jugglers, mountebanks, dulcimer and lute players, street poets who sang the praises of some fair cobbleress or pretty sausage girl; scamps of students from the Paris haunts of vice, loose fellows who conned the classical poets by day and took a purse by night; dancers, dwarfs, and merry men all, not averse to—