‘I do not despair; I shall have Paris on my side,’ said the Baron, as he made his farewells.
The day was bright, and a warm wind was stirring amidst the brown buds of the trees and forests; the great forests wore the purple haze of spring; from the terraces of Amyôt, where once Francis and the Marguerite des Marguerites had wandered, the immense view of the valleys of the Loire and of the Cher was outspread in the noon sunlight, white tourelle and grey church spire rising up from amid the lake of golden air like ‘silver sails upon a summer sea.’ From these stately terraces, raised high on colonnades of marble, with marble statues of mailed men-at-arms standing at intervals adown their length, the eyes could range over all that champaign country which lies open like a chronicle of France to those who have studied her wars and dynasties.
Yseulte loved to come there when the sun was bright as when it was at its setting, and dream her happy dreams, whilst gazing over the undulations of the great forests spreading solemn and hushed and shadowy, away, far away, to the silver line of the vast river and to the confines of what once was Touraine.
‘What do you find to think so much of, you, with your short life and your blameless conscience?’ asked Othmar that day, looking at her as she leaned against the marble parapet.
She might have answered in one word, ‘You,’ but love words did not come easily to her lips; she was very shy with him still.
She answered evasively: ‘Does one always think at all when one looks, and looks, and looks, idly like this? I do not believe reverie is real thinking; it is an enjoyment; everything is so still, so peaceful, so bright—and then it cannot go away, it is all yours; we may leave it, it cannot leave us.’
‘You are very fond of the country?’
‘I have never been anywhere else, except when I was a little child in Paris. I love Paris, but it is not like this.’
‘No woman lives who does not love Paris; but I think Amyôt suits you better. You have a Valois look; you are of another day than ours. I should not like to see you grow like the women of your time; you are a true patrician—you have no need of chien.’
He put a hothouse rose in her bosom as he spoke, and kissed her throat as he did so. The colour flushed there at his touch. She stooped her face over the rose.