Isabel scanned him, a quick glance, very comprehensive. Since we have here been dealing with Nature’s gifts we may well see those she has accorded our Jester. A lean-limbed man he was, tall, and very straight. The face, surrounded by the cap half black, half white, was bronzed with sun and open air. The hair hidden beneath it one might well guess to be dark, judging from the slight shadow on shaven lip and chin. The nose was straight, the nostrils sensitive. The eyes, black-lashed, were of an extraordinary blueness. Looking in his face you were aware of vivid colour, and saw that it lay in his eyes. The pupils were very black. The mouth, sensitive as the nostrils, was firm-lipped. The chin, square, was set at a fine angle with the jaw. Seeking for character you would have read determination in the line.
Isabel was not the only woman who scanned him. The four maids had their glances ready,—Mary Chester’s brief but sure; Leonora’s calm, somewhat indifferent; Monica’s swift, timid, eyes falling again to the frame of her embroidery; Brigid’s frank, boyish almost. But Peregrine’s eyes were still upon Isabel.
Isabel looking found novelty. Nor was it merely the novelty in a new-comer, a novelty enhanced by dreary weather, enforced sojourn within doors. In outward form she saw a Jester, good-looking enough, but merely a Jester such as his sire and grandsires before him. Yet for a brief space, swift as the tongued lightning which shoots across the darkened sky, she saw something more than mere fool. And having seen it she perceived in the fool the cloak to a riddle, a riddle perchance worth the solving. Yet she gave no hint of having seen.
“Your name, Sir Jester?” she demanded, her eyes now upon the fire, speaking of set purpose without looking at him, as one may speak to a servant.
“Peregrine, Madam.”
“Peregrine?” she dwelt on the syllables. “A bird?”
“A species of hawk, Madam.”
“Then a bird of prey?”
“Maybe; yet swift of flight, a wanderer.”
“Ah! And were you named for prey, flight, or wanderer?”