“We are a little kinder to Rubens at the Louvre,” said De Malfort, noting her upward gaze; “for we allow his elaborate glorification of his Majesty’s grandfather and grandmother about half a mile of wall. But I forgot, you have not seen Paris, nor those acres of gaudy colouring which Henri’s vanity inflicted upon us. Florentine Marie, with her carnation cheeks and opulent shoulders—the Roman-nosed Béarnais, with his pointed beard and stiff ruff. Mon Dieu, how the world has changed since Ravaillac’s knife snapped that valiant life! And you have never seen Paris? You look about you with wide-open eyes, and take this crowd, this ceiling, those candlebra for splendour.”
“Can there be a scene more splendid?” asked Angela, pleased to keep him by her side, rather than see him devote himself to her sister; grateful for his attention in that crowd where most people were strangers, and where Lord Fareham had not vouchsafed the slightest notice of her.
“When you have seen the Louvre, you will wonder that any King, with a sense of his own consequence in the world, can inhabit such a hovel as Whitehall—this congeries of shabby apartments, the offices of servants, the lodgings of followers and dependents, soldiers and civilians—huddled in a confused labyrinth of brick and stone—redeemed from squalor only by one fine room. Could you see the grand proportions, the colossal majesty of the great Henri’s palace—that palace whose costly completion sat heavy upon Sully’s careful soul! Henri loved to build—and his grandson, Louis, inherits that Augustan taste.”
“You were telling us of a new palace at Versailles——”
“A royal city in stone—white—dazzling—grandiose. The mortar was scarcely dry when I was there in March; but you should have seen the mi-careme ball. The finest masquerade that was ever beheld in Europe. All Paris came in masks to see that magnificent spectacle. His Majesty allowed entrance to all—and those who came were feasted at a banquet which only Rabelais could fairly describe. And then with our splendour there is an elegant restraint—a decency unknown here. Compare these women—Lady Shrewsbury yonder, Lady Chesterfield, the fat woman in sea-green and silver—Lady Castlemaine, brazen in orange velvet and emeralds—compare them with Condé’s sister, with the Duchesse de Bouillon, the Princess Palatine——”
“Are those such good women?”
“Humph! They are ladies. These are the kind of women King Charles admires. They are as distinct a race as the dogs that lie in his bed-chamber, and follow him in his walks, a species of his own creation. They do not even affect modesty. But I am turning preacher, like Fareham. Come, there is to be an entertainment in the theatre. Roxalana has returned to the stage—and Jacob Hall, the rope-dancer, is to perform.”
They followed the crowd, and De Malfort remained at Angela’s side till the end of the performance, and attended her to the supper-table afterwards. Fareham watched them from his place in the background. He stood ever aloof from the royal focus, the beauty, and the wit, the most dazzling jewels, the most splendid raiment. He was amidst the Court, but not of it.
Yes; the passion which these two entertained for each other was patent to every eye; but had it been an honourable attachment upon De Malfort’s side, he would have declared himself before now. He would not have abandoned the field to such a sober suitor as Denzil. Henri de Malfort loved her, and she fed his passion with her sweetest smiles, the low and tender tones of the most musical voice Fareham had ever listened to.
“The voice that came to me in my desolation—the sweetest sound that ever fell on a dying man’s ear,” he thought, recalling those solitary days and nights in the plague year, recalling those vanished hours with a fond longing, “that arm which shows dazzling white against the purple velvet of his sleeve is the arm that held up my aching head, in the dawn of returning reason; those are the eyes that looked down upon mine, so pitiful, so anxious for my recovery. Oh, lovely angel, I would be a leper again, a plague-stricken wretch, only to drink a cup of water from that dear hand—only to feel the touch of those light fingers on my forehead! There was a magic in that touch that surpassed the healing powers of kings. There was a light as of heaven in those benignant eyes. But, oh, she is changed since then. She is plague-stricken with the contagion of a profligate age. Her wings are scorched by the fire of this modish Tophet She has been taught to dress and look like the women around her—a little more modest—but after the same fashion. The nun I worshipped is no more.”