Villon, leaning forward with entreating hands, pleaded with beseeching lips.
"Would you pity me if I told you that I loved you?"
Katherine laughed, and the music of her laughter seemed to wake faint echoes among the roses as if every blossom were a magic bell with a fairy hand at the clapper.
"Heaven's mercy," she said. "How fast your fancy gallops. I care little to be flattered and less to be wooed, and I swear that I should be very hard to win."
She turned to mount the steps as she spoke, as if she had said all that she wanted to say, but Villon delayed her with imploring protest.
"I have more right to try than your taproom bandit. I see what he saw; I love what he loved."
Again the girl's laughter brightened the summer air.
"You are very inflammable."
Villon caught at her words.
"My fire burns to the ashes. You can no more stay me from loving you than you can stay the flowers from loving the soft air, or true men from loving honour, or heroes from loving glory. I would rake the moon from heaven for you."