But Falmouth by this time appeared half regretful of his recent outburst, and somewhat inclined to regard his companion as a dangerously plausible young fellow who had very unwarrantably wormed himself into Lord Falmouth's confidence. Falmouth's heavy jaw shut like a trap.
"By Saint Gregory!" said he; "if ever such notions soften me at all, I pray to be in hell entirely melted! What I have told you of is past, Master Mervale; and a wise man does not meditate unthriftily upon spilt milk."
"You are adamant?" sighed the boy.
"The nether millstone," said the marquis, smiling grimly, "is in comparison a pillow of down."
"Yet--yet the milk was sweet, my lord?" the boy suggested, with a faint answering smile.
"Sweet!" The marquis' voice had a deep tremor.
"And if the choice lay between Ursula and Katherine?"
"Oh, fool!--Oh, pink-cheeked, utter ignorant fool!" the marquis groaned. "Did I not say you knew nothing of love?"
"Heigho!" Master Mervale put aside all glum-faced discussion, with a little yawn, and sprang to his feet. "Then we can but hope that somewhere, somehow, Mistress Katherine yet lives and in her own good time may reappear. And while we speak of reappearances--surely the Lady Ursula is strangely tardy in making hers?"
The marquis' jealousy when it slumbered slept with an open ear. "Let us join them," he said, shortly, and he started through the gardens with quick, stiff strides.
2. Song-guerdon
They went westward toward the summer pavilion. Presently the marquis blundered into the green gloom of the maze, laid out in the Italian fashion, and was extricated only by the superior knowledge of Master Mervale, who guided Falmouth skilfully and surely through manifold intricacies, to open daylight.
Afterward they came to a close-shaven lawn, where the summer pavilion stood beside the brook that widened here into an artificial pond, spread with lily-pads and fringed with rushes. The Lady Ursula sat with the Earl of Pevensey beneath a burgeoning maple-tree. Such rays as sifted through into their cool retreat lay like splotches of wine upon the ground, and there the taller grass-blades turned to needles of thin silver; one palpitating beam, more daring than the rest, slanted straight toward the little head of the Lady Ursula, converting her hair into a halo of misty gold, that appeared out of place in this particular position. She seemed a Bassarid who had somehow fallen heir to an aureole; for otherwise, to phrase it sedately, there was about her no clamant suggestion of saintship. At least, there is no record of any saint in the calendar who ever looked with laughing gray-green eyes upon her lover and mocked at the fervor and trepidation of his speech. This the Lady Ursula now did; and, manifestly, enjoyed the doing of it.