“Madam,” said Peregrine, the heart in question beating very hotly, “it beats in your service alone.”
“You, too, are lonely?”
“Madam, it was so at one time.”
“And now?”
“Since you have shown me favour, since you have deigned to see the man beneath the motley, my heart has been too full for loneliness.”
“I think,” she said softly, musing, “we understand each other very well. It is strange, is it not, it should be so? I, Isabel de Belisle, and you a Jester, the meanest of my household, so men would say, and we hold a bond of understanding between us. Let us not heed what men would say. I have told you they see me very shallow. ’Tis sweet to me to think you believe it not. Shall we keep our understanding a secret between us,” she held out her hand.
Dropping on one knee he kissed it very humbly. Had she demanded his soul from him at that instant he had given it, believing it were better in her keeping than in his own. Perchance she had spoken again, but Mary Chester came softly across the grass, saw the two with eyes faintly troubled.
Hereafter there were days of sweet glamour for Peregrine. That he was understood he had guessed before in part, as we have seen. Here now were the words from his lady’s very lips. Of all those who did her service none knew her as he knew her, none saw the depths beneath the sparkling surface, none saw the heart-loneliness beneath the radiant smile.
Days followed on days, outwardly the same, yet holding many an exchange of glances, many a tender half-uttered sigh, now and again an unwatched meeting. There were hours in her chamber when he sang to her among her women, each word holding a meaning known to the two alone; hours in the garden in the full radiance of sun and colour, when every bird that sang, when every flower that bloomed poured benediction on them; and—quintessence of joy—rare solitary meetings, when heart spoke freely to heart in low tender words. Small wonder he forgot all else in the thought of her. Even Pippo’s artless companionship became at times burdensome to him.