"Love hath sometimes the thorn alone, the rose being blasted in bud," uttered a sweet and sonorous voice with a little nasal accent, out of the myrtle-boughs that starred with bloom her hair, and swept the hem of her green dress.
"Sweet soul, wast thou not, then, sated upon sonnets?" said Mary of
Scotland, in a stage aside.
"Do not the laurels overgrow the thorn?" said La Vallière, with a wistful, inquiring smile.
Laura looked away. "They are very green at Avignon," said she.
Out of two primroses, side by side, Stella and Vanessa put forth pale and anxious faces, with eyes tear-dimmed.
"Love does not feed on laurels," said Stella; "they are fruitless."
"That the clergy should be celibate is mine own desire," broke in Queen Elizabeth. "Shall every curly fool's-pate of a girl be turning after an anointed bishop? I will have this thing ended, certes! and that with speed."
Vanessa was too deep in a brown study to hear. Presently she spoke. "I believe that love is best founded upon a degree of respect and veneration which it is decent in youth to render unto age and learning."
"Ciel!" muttered Marguerite; "is it, then, that in this miserable
England one cherishes a grand passion for one's grandfather?"
The heliotrope-clusters melted into a face of plastic contour, rich full lips, soft interfused outlines, intense purple eyes, and heavy waving hair, dark indeed, but harmonized curiously with the narrow gold fillet that bound it. "It is no pain to die for love," said the low, deep voice, with an echo of rolling gerunds in the tone.