Beatrix of Clare Part 26

"Greater fortune, think you, than to be with her here at Windsor?"

The Countess looked at her mistress in blank surprise.

"Could there be greater fortune than to be where Your Majesty is in presence?" Aymer asked.

"Where she is in presence at this particular moment, you mean?" taking Beatrix's hand.

"Your Majesty is hardly fair to Sir Aymer or to me," said the Countess quickly. "You draw his scanty compliments from him like an arrow from a wound--hurting him all the while."

The Queen laughed. "If all Sir Aymer's wounds hurt him no more, he is likely to know little pain."

"I know he is French-bred and a courtier," Beatrix answered.

"As you told me once before in Pontefract," De Lacy observed.

"And as I am very apt to tell you again when you are presumptuous and flattering."

"Henceforth I shall be neither."

"Charming, Sir Aymer, charming . . . if you could."

"I can."

"Till you meet another woman."

"It is not in the other woman that my danger lies."

Beatrix frowned, and the Queen laughed.

"The Countess seems to know your failings, Sir Aymer," she said, "and may be this is a good time for you to know them, too. Nay, Beatrix, you need not accompany me. . . I am going to the Chapel. Do you take Sir Aymer in hand and bring him out of his French habits, since you do not like them. For my part, I think them very charming."

"Surely she loves you," said De Lacy, when the Queen had gone.

The Countess gave him her shoulder.

"She takes a queer way to show it then," she retorted, her foot beating a tattoo on the stones.

He smothered a laugh. "Shall we walk?" he asked.

He got a shrug and a louder tattoo.

"Since the Queen has left me to your tender mercies," she said coldly, "I am at your service."

They walked in silence; he smiling; she stern-eyed and face straight to the fore.

"Does it occur to you, my lady," he said after a while, "that you are a bit unjust?"

The small head lifted higher . . . then presently, with rising inflection: "Unjust--to whom?"

"To the Queen."

"I am sorry."

"And unjust to me also."

No answer--only a faint toss of the ruddy tresses.

"And to me also," he repeated.

She surveyed him ignoringly--and turned away, eyebrows lifted.

De Lacy smiled and waited.

Presently she gave him a quick, sidelong glance. He was gazing idly toward the river. . . Again she looked . . . and again--each time a trifle more deliberately. . . Finally she faced him.

"You are unusually disagreeable to-day," she said.

"I am sorry," he answered instantly. "I do not wish to be."

It was so contrary to what she had expected that she halted in sheer surprise.

"I wonder," she said musingly. . . "I wonder . . ." then she laughed forgivingly. "Come, let us cease this constant banter. We have been at it ever since we met, and it profits nothing to our friendship."

"With all my heart," he exclaimed, taking her hand and pressing it with light fingers.

She drew it away sharply.

"Do you think that a fitting way to begin?"

"Your pardon," he said softly; "I fear I did not think."

She looked at him with quick scrutiny.

"We islanders are not given to impulse, Sir Aymer, and do not trust it deeply. I forgive you--but . . . not again."

"By St. Denis! I seem to blunder always," he said sadly. "I please you in nothing and am ever at fault."

"You are unjust to yourself," she protested. "You please me in much, and . . . you ought to know it;" then she blushed. . . "Let us go on the terrace," and hurried across. . . "Now talk to me . . . not about me," she said rather curtly, as she sat down.

De Lacy was growing used to these swift shifts of humor, these flashes of tenderness, veering instantly to aloofness, and then back to a half-confidential camaraderie, that was alluringly delicious, yet irritatingly unsatisfying. At first he had tried to force the situation to his own liking,--to break through her moods and effect an atmosphere more equable,--but she soon had taught him the folly of it, and never failed to punish when he forgot. This time she, herself, had broken through a bit, but that would only make his punishment the heavier.

At first the conversation was aimless and disconnected. De Lacy let it drift and the Countess was rather distrait and steered it uncertainly.

Presently she took a grip upon herself, and, before he realized it, he was telling her of the French Court; of Louis the King, whom men called "The Fell," but who was, he said, the ablest of the Valois, and would do much for France--though not by the means then deemed most honorable,--being far ahead of his Age. He spoke of the brave, dead St. Pol, the Constable--after Dunois, the greatest since Du Guesclin's time. He told her of their palaces . . . of the life of their women, though he touched but lightly upon its loose gayety . . . of the cities . . . of the great domains whereon the n.o.ble had the "right of high justice, the middle and the low," and indeed up until very lately had done his own sweet will toward aught but the King, and in many cases toward the King himself. . . And at length he mentioned having seen and met Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, at the Court of Blois.

Concerning him the Countess asked many questions, and Aymer answered them as best he could. He had not given the Earl much thought, nor had he offered him any attentions, for he was regarded as little more than adventurer--though one with strangely plenty of money; and who was tolerated by the crafty Louis only because he might be useful some time to play against the Yorkist King of England.

"Methinks there is more in the Tudor than you credit," said the Countess. "I have heard much of him, and from one who knows him well--or did a few years since. He is not a brave Knight or skilled warrior may be, but he has a certain shrewdness and determination which would make him a formidable rival for the Crown, if he were able to muster a following or had an opportunity to arouse any enthusiasm for his cause."

"And from what wise person did you learn all this?" De Lacy asked with an amused smile.