CHAPTER VIII
THE NEW SECRETARY
| "Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind, |
| That from the nunnery |
| Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind, |
| To war and arms I flee.... |
| "Yet this inconstancy is such |
| As you too shall adore. |
| I could not love thee, dear, so much, |
| Loved I not honor more." |
The rich notes rang higher and higher, filling the languid air, and drowning the trill of the mockingbirds. Patricia, filling her apron with midsummer flowers, sang with a careless passion, her mind far away in the midst of a Whitehall pageant, described to her the night before by that silver-tongued courtier, Sir Charles Carew.
Still singing, she went up the steps of the porch and into the cool wide hall. In her face there was a languorous beauty born of the sunshine outside; a soft color glowed in her cheeks, her eyes were large and dreamy, little damp tendrils of gold strayed about her temples. She threw down her hat, and loosened the kerchief of delicate lawn from about her warm young throat; then, with the flowers still in her arms, she raised the latch of the door of a room held sacred to Colonel Verney, and entered, to find herself face to face with the convict, Godfrey Landless, who sat at a table covered with papers, busily writing.
She started violently, and the mass of flowers fell to the floor, shattering the petals from the roses and poppies. Landless came forward, knelt down, and, picking them up, restored them to her without a word.
"I thank you," she said coldly. "I thought my father was here."
"Colonel Verney is in the next room, madam."
She moved to the door leading into the great room with the gait of a princess, and Landless went back to his work.
Colonel Verney, on his knees before the richly carven chest containing his library, looked up from the two score volumes to behold a mass of brilliant blooms transferred from two white arms to the ground outside the open window.