“She was too fickle, and too much the weeping fair,” decided Don Ruy. “Bradamante the warrior 229 maid is more to the fancy––she would fight for the lover she loved––or against him as the case might be, yet give love to him all the time! She was the very pole-star of those old romances––but they make no such maids except in books!”
“Not so much pity for that,” commented the secretary. “Since she was too easily won for the hearth stone of a plain man. It is clearly set down that she spoke with her pagan lover but once, and fell straightway so deep in love that she would fight either Christian or Moor to find the way to him. A maid like that looks well afar off, but it would take a valiant man to house with her!”
“How know you aught of how many times eyes must meet––or words be said ere love comes?” demanded Don Ruy––“Bantam that you are!––Must a man and a maid see summer and winter together ere the priest has work to do?”
“Alas––and saints guard us!––we need not to live long to see denial of that!” said the secretary and shrugged and smiled. “But since a maid close to my own house throws lilies to strange cavaliers, it is not for me to make discourse of ladies light-of-love!”
“Light-of-love!––Jack-a-napes! You know not so much after all if you get that thought cross wise in your skull! My ‘Doña Bradamante’ (for as yet neither you or the padre have given a name to her!) the ‘Doña Bradamante’ spoke no word the most rigid duenna could have frowned down! If you are her foster brother you might have gathered that much of wisdom to yourself!”
“But––your Excellency––she has never scattered wisdom broadcast on any one of us! An elfish maid who needed guard of both duenna and confessor:––how 230 was a mere friend to know that a love of a mad moment would have made her a wonder of wisdom and discretion?”
Whereupon Don Ruy suggested that he go to the devil and learn sense, and added that if the famous magic steed, or ring of invisibility were to be found in the desert regions of these Indian provinces, he would use them for a peep into the palace of the Viceroy, or the nunnery of the Doña of the Lily. No ambassador would he trust. For himself he would see how much or how little of madness was back of the message of the blossom, or the guerdon of the silken scarf.
“If I were indeed a worthy page I would make a song of your enchanted––or demented Doña, and pipe it to you to the tombé of the medicine workers on the roofs,” declared the lad in high glee that Don Ruy again spoke with frankness to him.
But his excellency put aside the offer, content to make his own songs when there was a maid to listen.
“Dame Yahn Tsyn-deh might listen––and even make herself beautiful for you.”