The Forest Lovers

The fourteenth was Melot, a maid of the kitchen. This young woman,

whose love affairs were at least as important in her own eyes as could

possibly be those of the Countess her mistress (whom she had hardly

ever seen), or of Prosper (whom she conceived as a sexless

abstraction, built for the purposes of eating and wearing steel), or

of Roy (who, she assumed, had none)--this young woman, I say, was best

pleased of them all. She was perhaps pretty; she had a certain

exuberant charm, I suppose--round red cheeks, round black eyes, even

teeth, and a figure--and was probably apt to give it the fullest

credit. Roy's indifference, or reticence, or timidity (whichever it

was) provoked her. There was either innocence, or backwardness, or

ennui to overcome: in any case, victory would be a triumph over

a kitchenful of adepts, and here was a chance of victory. So far she

owned to failure in all the essays she had made. She had tried

comradeship, a bite of her apple--declined. She had put her head on

his shoulder more than once--endured once, checked effectively by

sudden removal of the shoulder and upsetting of the lady a final time.

She leaned over him to see what he was reading--he ceased reading.

Comradeship was a mockery; let her next try mischief. For happy

mischief the passionist must fume: he had looked at her till she felt

a fool. She had tried innuendo--he did not understand it; languishing

--he gladly left her to languish; coquetry elsewhere--he asked nothing

better. She thought she must be more direct; and she was.

Isoult was in the pantry alone the second day of Prosper's quest. She

stood at gaze out of the window, seeing nothing but dun-colour and

drab where the sunlight made all the trees golden-green. Melot came in

with a great stir over nothing at all, hemmed, coughed, sighed,

heighoed. The block of a fellow stood fast, rooted at his window--

gaping. Melot was stung. She came to close quarters.

"Oh, Roy," she sighed, "never was such a laggard lad with me before.

Where hast thou been to school?"

Thereupon she puts hands upon the dunce, kisses him close, grows

sudden red, stammers, holds off, has the wit to make sure--and bundles

out, blazing with her news.

In twenty minutes it was all over the castle; Prosper's flag was

higher, and Isoult's in the mire. In thirty it had come to my lady's

dresser. Isoult, in the meantime, purely unconscious of anything but a

sick heart, had wandered up into the ante-chamber, and was poring over

a Book of Hours of the Blessed Virgin, leaning on her elbows at a

table.

The dresser, having assimilated the news, was only too happy to impart

to the Countess. This she did, and with more detail than the truth

would warrant. Half hints became whole, backstairs whispers shouted in

the corridors; and all went to swell the feast of sound in the lady's

chamber. It would be idle to say that the Countess was furious, and

moreover untrue, for that implies a scarlet face; the Countess grew as

grey as a dead fire. She was, in truth, more shocked than angry,

shocked at such a flagrant insult to her mere hospitality. But

gradually, as the whole truth seemed to shape itself--the figure she

made, standing bare as her love had left her before this satyr of a

man; the figure of Prosper, tongue in the cheek, leering at her; the

figure of Isoult, a loose-limbed wanton sleepy with vice--before this

hideous trinity, when she had shuddered and cringed, she rose up

trembling, possessed with a really imperial rage. And if ever a

grievously flouted lady had excuse for rage, it was this lady.