“There are a great many, you see,” she told them. “And such nice old-fashioned plants. Rue and marjoram, and lavender, and marigolds. I love marigolds, don’t you? They won’t come yet, though.”
“No. They are ‘flowers of middle summer,’” quoted Monsieur Fontenelle. “You see I know your Shakespeare,” as Anne turned to him with a smile of pleased surprise.
“And the ‘daffodils that come before the swallow dares’ are nearly over,” said Dampierre. “But you still have some pale primroses and the violets.... Now don’t try to show off, François, because I want to!... ‘Violets dim, but sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes or Cytherea’s breath.’”
“You are wonderful!” laughed Anne. “You are Frenchmen, but you know The Winter’s Tale!”
“I ought to. I have been brought up chiefly in England,” returned Dampierre. “But Fontenelle is a disgusting genius. He knows the literature of all languages by instinct. He was born knowing them. In his nurse’s arms he terrified his relations by babbling in English, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew and Arabic.”
Anne laughed again. “Then he would like to see the library,” she said. “I will take you there presently. I’m glad you approve my Shakespeare garden,” she added, with a touch of the shyness she had almost forgotten.
“It’s delicious!” declared René. “That old wall as a background, and the mass of wallflowers—gillyflowers, Shakespeare calls them, doesn’t he? And the beds of violets! The scent of it all! It smells of England. And I love England, because it’s my mother’s and Shakespeare’s country.”
“You have some of your own flowers growing here,” he added, stooping towards a bed of double narcissus, and glancing up at Anne with a smile.
“My own flowers?” she repeated, puzzled.
“Don’t you know the country name for these?” He was still smiling. “Sweet Nancies.”