"Saw you but now how she served the dwarf and the overgrown lump?" whispered the student to the duke's fool. "Are you still minded to meet her?"
For answer the jester left the window, stepped to the door, and, opening it, strode into the room.
CHAPTER X
THE FOOL RETURNS TO THE CASTLE
As the duke's fool suddenly appeared in the crowded apartment, the hubbub abruptly ceased; the minstrels and mountebanks gazed in surprise at the slender figure of the alien jester whose rich garments proclaimed him a personage of importance, one who had reached that pinnacle in buffoonery, the high office of court plaisant. The morio crouched against the wall, his fear of the new-comer as great as his body was large; the garret minstrels stopped strumming their instruments, while the woman at the fire uttered a quick exclamation and dropped the spoon with a clatter to the floor, where it was promptly seized by the dwarf, who, taking advantage of the woman's consternation, thrust it greedily to his lips. But soon recovering from her wonderment, the gipsy soundly boxed the dwarf's ears, recovered her spoon and set herself once more to stirring the contents of the pot.
The jester observed her for a moment—the heavy, bare arm moving round and round over the kettle; her sunburnt legs uncovered to the knee; the masculine attitude of her figure with the torn and worn garments that covered her—and she seemed to him a veritable trull of disorder and squalor. The gipsy, too, looked at him over her shoulder, and, as she gazed, her hand went slower and slower, until all motion ceased, and the spoon lay on the edge of the pot, when she turned deliberately, offering him the full sight of her bold cheeks and shameless eyes.
"Are you Nanette, wife of this philosopher?" asked the duke's fool, approaching, and indicating the miserable scamp who clung near the doorway as one undecided whether to enter or run away.
"Yes; I am Nanette, his true and lawful spouse," she answered with a shrill laugh. "Wilt come to me, true-love?" she called out to her apprehensive yoke-mate.
"Nay; I'll go out in the air a while," hurriedly replied the vagabond-scholar, and quickly vanished.