CHAPTER SIX
A LOVE-STRAIN
Late that night, when the little throng below had been as nearly satisfied with information concerning the great event as three poor hours of steady talking from Courtoise could make them, Eleanore sat in her own room alone with the messenger, there to learn those intimate details of Gerault’s wooing, that none but her had right to know. She questioned Courtoise eagerly, earnestly, repeatedly, with such yearning in her eyes that the young squire’s heart smote him to see what her loneliness had been.
“Tell me again, Courtoise, yet once again! She is fair, this maid?”
“As fair as a rose, madame; her skin composed of pink and white, so cunningly mingled that none can judge which hath most play upon it. And her eyes are blue like a midsummer sky; and she hath clouds of hair that glisten like meshes of sun-threads, crowning her.”
“And she is small and delicately formed?”
“She is slender and fragile; yet is she in no way sickly of body.”
“And her name,” went on madame, musingly, “is Lenore! Is that not a strange thing, Courtoise? Is’t not strange that a second time this name should have entered so deeply into the life of thy lord? Was he glad that it so chanced, Courtoise; or did he hesitate to pronounce it again?”