"If that is foolishness, may I never be wise again. To me it is the one wisdom of the world. I think I am drunk this morning and it is only seven o'clock. Is not that scandalous? Love-drunk at seven in the morning and never to be sober again! Mademoiselle de Vesc, do you know you are the most beautiful woman in all France?"
"I know I am the happiest," she answered soberly. "But, Stephen, what have you got for the boy? I would not be a true woman if I was not curious."
"And you are the very truest woman——"
"Stephen, I will not have any more foolishness. Tell me at once what have you got for Charles?"
"Two small gifts: a coat-of-mail so fine in the links that you could hold it in your two hands—no! not in your two hands, they are only large enough to hold my heart. Then there is an embroidered mask, a tinselled toy of a thing but pretty enough. They will help him to dress his plays. Ask him, Ursula, if he will accept them from me even though I came by way of Valmy."
"Would you spoil his pleasure? No, I shall say nothing at all about Valmy, just that a wandering minstrel be so rich that he can make presents to a Dauphin of France! Sing me a song, Master Homer the blind, and I will give you—let me see: no, not what you think—a silver livre!" But she did not wait for his music. Dropping him a little demure, mocking curtsy she turned and ran down the box-edged path, singing as she went, and the air she sang was Stephen La Mothe's "Heigh-ho! love is my life; Live I in loving and love I to live!" and the lilt of the music set Master Homer's heart throbbing.
CHAPTER XXXI
SAXE RISES IN VILLON'S ESTIMATION
"There was a time," said Villon, "when I, too, could forget that rose arches are open at the ends. The world is always gaping at our elbow. If we taste a peach in an orchard, the wall is low; if we smell a rose in a garden, there are, Heaven be thanked, more flowers than leaves when life's at May; and either way the world is with us."
"And you were the gaping world!" answered La Mothe, vexed for Ursula's sake that Villon of the bitter tongue should have discovered their secret. "Was that friendly of you?"