For the first time in his presence the girl uncovered her eyes and looked up at him.
“Yes,” said the king, “your eyes are fine. I am constrained to concede that much, and if I do not wed you myself it is but right I should nominate a candidate for your hand. There is a friend of mine for whom I shall use my influence with Francis and your father that they may persuade you to marry him. He is young Talbot, Constable of Falaise, a demented stripling who calls you the Pearl of France. Ah, now the colour comes to your cheeks. I would not have believed it. All this demureness then——” But the girl had sunk at his feet, grasped his hand and pressed it to her lips.
“Tut, tut,” he cried hastily, “that is a reversal of the order of nature. Rise, and when I send young Talbot to you, see that you welcome him; and now, good-day to you.”
As he passed through the outer room the duchesse lay in wait for him and began murmuring apologies for her daughter’s diffidence.
“We have arranged all about the wedding, madam,” said the king reassuringly as he left the palace.
The next day at the hour when the king had met Madeleine for the first time, he threaded his way eagerly through the mazes of the old castle until he came to the door that led him out into the Elysian garden. The weather still befriended him, being of an almost summer mildness.
For several minutes he paced impatiently up and down the gravel walk, but no laughing face greeted him from the battlements above. At last, swearing a good round Scottish oath he said, “I’ll solve the mystery of the balcony,” and seizing the lower branch of the tree, he was about to climb as he had done before, when a tantalizing silvery laugh brought his arms down to his sides again. It seemed to come from an arbour at the further end of the grounds, but when he reached there the place proved empty. He pretended to search among the bushes, but nevertheless kept an eye on the arbour, when his sharp ear caught a rustling of silk from behind the summer-house. He made a dash towards it, then reversed his direction, speeding like the wind, and next instant this illusive specimen of Gallic womanhood ran plump into his arms, not seeing where she was going, her head averted to watch the danger that threatened from another quarter.
Before she could give utterance to more than one exclamatory “Oh,” he had kissed her thrice full on the lips. She struggled in his arms like a frightened bird, nobly indignant with shame-crimsoned cheeks, smiting him with her powerless little snowflake of a hand. Her royal lover laughed.
“Ha, my Madeleine, this is the second stage of the game. The hand was paradise on earth; the lips are the seventh heaven itself.”
“Release me, you Scottish clown!” cried Madeleine, her black eyes snapping fire. “I will have you whipped from the court for your insolence.”