"Nay, nay, own, dear Alice," exclaimed the princess, in reply to something that had passed before, "that day by day you have been bringing me nearer and nearer to a certain castle in the wood; and, in truth, I think that you must have got the noble lord your father to be a confederate in your plot."
"Good sooth, dear lady," replied Alice, "a happy thing were it for us poor women if all fathers were so complacent: I know well where one little heart would be in that case;" and she looked up with an arch smile in the face of the princess.
However strongly prudence may enjoin them to be silent themselves, all women feel more or less pleasure when the conversation is brought near the subject of their loves. Though Mary of Burgundy would not say one word that she could help, upon the feelings of her own heart, even to so dear and faithful a friend as Alice of Imbercourt, yet she felt no displeasure when the gay girl's tongue touched upon the subject of her affections, although clouds and darkness hung over the prospect, and all hope of their gratification was but faint indeed. At the same time she was, perhaps, a little fearful of the topic ever being carried too far; and, therefore, after a smile, in which melancholy mingled, in some degree, with pleasure, she returned to her own jest with her fair follower, without adding anything more to a subject on which both, in happier circumstances, might have been well pleased to speak more freely.
"Nay, nay, Alice," she exclaimed, "that was an artful turn, my sweet friend: but you shall not escape so readily. Tell me, did you not put it in your father's head, to think what a fine thing it would be for me to visit all the different towns in Flanders, and win the love of the good burghers? And did you not yourself lay out the very plan of our journey from Ghent to Alost, and thence to Brussels, and thence to Louvaine, and thence to Tirlemont? And have you not kept me three full days at Tirlemont; and, at last, have you not brought me up the fair river Geete, with our hawks upon our hands, and nobody to watch us, till we are within a league or two of this same castle of Hannut? Fie, Alice! fie! it is a decided conspiracy!"
Alice laughed gaily, and replied: "Well, lady, if it can be proved, even by the best logic of your beautiful lips, that I do wish to see my lover, I know no woman, who has one, that does not do so too, from the farmer's milkmaid, with her pail upon her head, to the Princess of Burgundy, on her white Spanish jennet."
Mary laughed and sighed. "You own it, then," she answered: "I thought, when last night you were striving hard to persuade me to visit the castle of Hannut, and have my future fate laid bare by the dark and awful skill of this learned uncle of yours, that there was a leaf in the book of fortune, or rather in the book of life, that you would well like to read for yourself. But tell me, Alice," she added, more seriously, "tell me something of this lover, to whom, it seems, you are affianced. There appears some mystery about him, and you, of course, must know more of him than any one else."
"Nay, quite the contrary, my dear lady and mistress," replied Alice of Imbercourt; "that shows how little you know of the sad race called men. His being my lover is the very reason, of all others, why I should know less of him than any other person."
"How so," demanded the princess, with a look of surprise.
"Why, simply because, from the moment he becomes my lover," replied Alice of Imbercourt, "he takes the very best possible care to hide every evil quality in his nature and disposition, upon the full and preconcerted plan of not letting me see any one of them till such time as he is my husband. Then, out they come! But that is not all," she continued; "that would only hide a part of his character; but, at the same time that he takes these precautions, I, on my part, like every wise woman, make up my mind, on no account whatever to see any little fault or failing that he may accidentally display, at least, till such time as he is my husband. Then, of course, when nothing more is to be gained or lost, I shall, beyond doubt, take as much pains to find them out as another, and he will take as little to hide them."
"That is a bad plan, Alice," replied the princess; "that is a bad plan. Find out the faults, if you can, in the lover, while your hand is your own, and your will is free. See them not at all in your husband; for blindness in such a case is woman's best policy. But you mistake me, Alice; it was not of his mind I spoke, but of his situation; for, when questioning my Lord of Imbercourt the other day, he called him your uncle's nephew: now, none of our wise heralds ever heard, it seems, of such a nephew."