She played a little prelude, not looking at the notes but at him; then she glanced down at her slim hands and began to sing:
"I hung a bird in a wicker cage
To catch the morning sun,
And saw below the people rage
And press, and shout, and run,
To see her walk, her guards between,
With her face to the Maytime sun."
Marius fingered his sword and walked up and down, but he was listening and she knew it.
"I was a clerk at a window, with learnèd books to write,
She was a Mary Martyr and sin in the Church's sight."
The Countess did not raise her eyes; she sang softly, and the words of the laboured incongruous song struck to the heart of her listener.
"The bird sang in his prison
To a captive daffodil,
That with the spring had risen,
In the pot on my window sill.
The sky was bright as a jewel
Through the trees on Tower Hill.
As her stainèd feet crept onward, I saw the people turn—
And I looked at the Mary Martyr whose body and soul must burn.
"Young was she and slender,
Lo! but a wondrous thing.
Her face was as full of splendour
As the primrose woods in spring,
When God bends through the branches,
To hear the mavis sing.
She was but a Mary Martyr, cursed for her heresy,
But her eyes were clear as water and troubled the heart in me."
The Countess rose swiftly.
"Are you glad to be in London?" she said; she came towards him, swinging her gloves; he was aware of the perfume of her garments, of the heavy soft sound of her moving velvet.
"I think I am leaving again for Paris, madam," he looked at her straightly. "Shall I not fetch Miss Chressham?"