He was silent for awhile; and she held his fingers lovingly.
He roused:
“They speak gravely of the vague loves of gods and angels; but what is all their thin love to the love of a man for a woman? What do the unbodied gods know that is half so sweet as the love of a woman for a child?”
Betty smiled:
“Noll,” said she—“you are wasting argument upon me—I love you.”
He raised her gloved hand to his lips and kissed the warm fingers:
“I have only drifted—aimlessly,” he said. “But I am done with this monk’s life. This day three weeks you come with me to Paris, mated to me. And I will go through my apprenticeship to art and letters and win a wage at the same time.”
“But—Noll! you must not throw away a certainty—you have an allowance——”
The young fellow’s face darkened:
“I discovered from my father, only yesterday, what was the price of Wyntwarde’s allowance to me—and I have written to my cousin that he may keep his money—I go my own way.... He is a man that stands hotly enough on the nobility of his blood; I asked him what was the benefit to me of that blood if it bound me to menial practices. I told him I would be no paid accomplice of his, or any other man’s—that I will pay him back his services to me before I count myself a free man——”