"And yet, Sire, at their first meeting he did not comport himself like one easily put out," persisted the favorite. "''Tis with a cold hand you welcome me, Princess,' he said, noticing her insensibility of manner. Then rising he gazed upon her long and deep, as a soldier might survey a battlefield. 'And yet,' said he, still holding her fingers, 'I'll warrant me warm blood could course through this little hand.' At that the color rose in her cheek; behold! the statue was touched with life and she looked at him as drawn against her will. 'If my hand be cold, my Lord,' she answered, courteously, 'it belies the character of your welcome.' Whereupon he laughed like one who has had a victory."
"Beshrew me," said the king, modifying his last observation, "if women are not all eyes and ears! I neither heard nor saw all that. A little constraint—a natural blush to punctuate their talk—the meeting seemed conventional enough. 'Tis through your own romantic heart you looked, Anne!"
Quicker circulated the goblets of silver, gold and crystal; faster babbled the pretty lips; brighter grew the eyes beneath the stupendous towers that crowned the heads of the court ladies. All talked at once without disturbing the king, who now whispered soft nothings in the ear of the countess. From the other tables in the hall arose a varying cadence of clatter and laughter, which increased with the noise and din of the king's own board; a clamor always just subservient to the deeper chorus of the royal party; an accompaniment, as it were, full yet unobtrusive, to the hubbub from the more exalted company. But the princely uproar growing louder, the grand-masters, grand-chamberlain, gentlemen of the chamber and lesser lights of the church were enabled to carol and make merry with less restraint. The pungent smell of roses permeated the hall, arising from a screen of shrubbery at one end of the room wherein sang a hundred silver-toned birds.
At the king's table Caillette recited a merry roundelay, and Triboulet roared out tale after tale, each more full-flavored than the one that went before it, flinging smart sayings at marriage, and drawing a ludicrous picture of the betrayed husband. Villot, a lily in his hand, which he regarded ever sentimentally, caroled the boisterous espousals of a yokel and a cinder-wench, while Marot and a bishop contended in a heated argument regarding the translation of a certain passage of Ovid's "Art of Love."
Singularly pale, unusually tranquil, the duke's fool furtively watched his master and the princess. In contrast to his composure, Jacqueline's merriment seemed the more unrestrained; she laughed like a witch; her hands flashed with pretty gestures, and she had so tossed her head, her hair floated around her, wild and disordered.
"Why are you so quiet?" she whispered to the duke's fool.
"Is there not enough merriment, mistress?" he answered, gravely.
"There can never be any to spare," she said. "And you would do well to remember your office."
"What do you mean?" he asked, absently.
"That you have many enemies; that you can not live at court with a jaundiced countenance. Heigh-ho! Alackaday! You should hie yourself back to the woods and barren wastes of Friedwald, Master Fool."