Not quite thus, perhaps, ran the meditations of Catherine de Vaucelles one still August night as she sat at her window, overlooking the acacias and chestnuts of her garden. Noël, conspicuously prosperous in blue and silver, had but now gone down the Rue Saint Jacques, singing, clinking the fat purse whose plumpness was still a novelty. That evening she had given her promise to marry him at Michaelmas.
This was a black night, moonless, windless. There were a scant half-dozen stars overhead, and the thick scent of roses and mignonette came up to her in languid waves. Below, the tree-tops conferred, stealthily, and the fountain plashed its eternal remonstrance against the conspiracy they lisped of.
After a while Catherine rose and stood contemplative before a long mirror that was in her room. Catherine de Vaucelles was now, at twenty-three, in the full flower of her comeliness. Blue eyes the mirror showed her,—luminous and tranquil eyes, set very far apart; honey-colored hair massed heavily about her face, a mouth all curves, the hue of a strawberry, tender but rather fretful, and beneath it a firm chin; only her nose left something to be desired,—for that feature, though well-formed, was diminutive and bent toward the left, by perhaps the thickness of a cobweb. She might reasonably have smiled at what the mirror showed her, but, for all that, she sighed.
"O Beauty of her, whereby I am undone," said Catherine, wistfully. "Ah, God in Heaven, forgive me for my folly! Sweet Christ, intercede for me who have paid dearly for my folly!"
Fate grinned in her weaving. Through the open window came the sound of a voice singing.
Sang the voice:
"O Beauty of her, whereby I am undone!
O Grace of her, that hath no grace for me!
O Love of her, the bit that guides me on
To sorrow and to grievous misery!
O felon Charms, my poor heart's enemy—"
and the singing broke off in a fit of coughing.
Catherine had remained motionless for a matter of two minutes, her head poised alertly. She went to the gong and struck it seven or eight times.
"Macée, there is a man in the garden. Bring him to me, Macée,—ah, love of God, Macée, make haste!"