"Oh, say something more, sweet, sweet girl!" cried the young knight eagerly;--"say something more, to give my heart some firm assurance--let that promise be to me!"
"Well, well!" said Isadore, speaking quick, as if afraid the words should be stayed upon her very lip, "no one but you--Will that content you?"
De Coucy pressed her hand to his lips, and to his heart, with all that transport of gratitude that the most invaluable gift a woman can bestow deserves; and yet he pressed her to repeat her promise. He feared, he said, the many powerful arts with which friends work on a woman's mind,--the persuasions, the threats, the false reports; and he ceased not till he had won her to repeat again and again, with all the vows that could bind her heart to his, that her hand should never be given to another.
"They may cloister me in a convent," she said, as the very reiteration rendered her promise bolder; and his ardent and passionate professions made simple assurances seem cold: "but I deem not they will do it; for my father, though quick in his disposition, and immoveable in what he determines, loves me, I think, too well, to part with me willingly for ever. He may threaten it; but he will not execute his threat. But oh! De Coucy, have a care that you urge him not to such a point, that he shall say my hand shall never be yours; for if once 'tis said, he will hold it a matter of honour never to retract, though he saw us both dying at his feet."
De Coucy promised to be patient, and to be circumspect, and all that lover could promise; and, engaging Isadore to sit down on a mossy seat that nature herself had formed with the roots of an old oak, he occupied the vacant minutes with all those sweet pourings forth of the heart to which love, and youth, and imagination alone dare give way, in this cold and stony world. Isadore's eyes were bent upon him, her hand lay in his, and each was fully occupied with the other, when a sort of half scream from the waiting-maid Alixe woke them from their dreams; and, looking up, they found themselves in the presence of old Sir Julian of the Mount.
"Good! good! marvellous good!" cried the old knight.--"Get thee in, Isadore--without a word!--Get thee in too, good mistress looker on!" he added to Alixe; "'tis well thou art not a man instead of a woman, or I would curry thy hide for thee. Get thee in, I say!--I must deal with our noble host alone."
Isadore obeyed her father's commands in silence, turning an imploring look to De Coucy, as if once more to counsel patience. Alixe followed, grumbling; and the old knight, turning to De Coucy, addressed him in a tone of ironical compliment, intended to be more bitter than the most unmixed abuse.
"A thousand thanks! a thousand thanks! beau sire!" he said, "for your disinterested hospitality. Good sooth, 'twas a pity your plan for taking us prisoners did not go forward; for now you might have a fair excuse for keeping us so, too. 'Twould have been an agreeable surprise to us all--to me especially; and I thank you for it. Doubtless, you proposed to marry my daughter without my knowledge also, and add another agreeable surprise. I thank you for that, too, beau sire!"
"You mistake me, good Sir Julian," replied De Coucy calmly: "I did not propose to wed your daughter without your knowledge, but hoped that your consent would follow your knowledge of our love. I am not rich, but I do believe that want of wealth is the only objection you could have----"
"And enough surely," interrupted Sir Julian. "What! is that black castle, and half a hundred roods of wild wood, a match for ten thousand marks a year, which my child is heir too?--Beau sire, you do mistake. Doubtless you are very liberal, where you give away other people's property to receive yourself; but I am of a less generous disposition. Besides," he added, more coolly, "to put the matter to rest for ever. Sir Guy de Coucy, know that I have solemnly promised my daughter's hand to the noble Guillaume de la Roche Guyon."