"Well, all I can say is that if I were Mrs. Tregonell, I could never have been happy again," persisted Miss St. Aubyn.
They came to Trevena soon after this, and went down the hill to the base of that lofty crag on which King Arthur's Castle stood. They found Mrs. Fairfax and the pony-carriage in the Valley. The provisions had all been carried up the ascent. Everything was ready for luncheon.
A quarter of a hour later they were all seated on the long grass and the crumbling stones, on which Christabel and her lover had sat so often in that happy season of her life when love was a new thought, and faith in the beloved one as boundless as that far-reaching ocean, on which they gazed in dreamy content. Now, instead of low talk about Arthur and Guinevere, Tristan and Iseult, and all the legends of the dim poetic past, there were loud voices and laughter, execrable puns, much conversation of the order generally known as chaff, a great deal of mild personality of that kind which, in the age of Miss Burney and Miss Austin, was described as quizzing and roasting, and an all-pervading flavour of lunacy. The Baron de Cazalet tried to take advantage of the position, and to rise to poetry; but he was laughed down by the majority, especially by Mr. FitzJesse, who hadn't a good word for Arthur and his Court.
"Marc was a coward, and Tristan was a traitor and a knave," he said. "While as for Iseult, the less said of her the better. The legends of Arthur's birth are cleverly contrived to rehabilitate his mother's character, but the lady's reputation still is open to doubt. Jack the Giant Killer and Tom Thumb are quite the most respectable heroes connected with this western world. You have no occasion to be proud of the associations of the soil, Mrs. Tregonell."
"But I am proud of my country, and of its legends," answered Christabel.
"And you believe in Tristan and Iseult, and the constancy which was personified by a bramble, as in the famous ballad of Lord Lovel."
"The constancy which proved itself by marrying somebody else, and remaining true to the old love all the same," said Mrs. Fairfax Torrington, in her society voice, trained to detonate sharp sentences across the subdued buzz of a dinner-table.
"Poor Tristan," sighed Dopsy.
"Poor Iseult," murmured Mopsy.
They had never heard of either personage until this morning.