The King's ward held court as though she were a king's daughter. In the brightness of her beauty she sat there, as gracious for the nonce as the sunshine, and as much of another world. All knew her story, and to the daring that is in men's hearts her own daring appealed,--and she was young and very beautiful. Some there had not been my friends, and now rejoiced in what seemed my inevitable ruin; some whom I had thought my friends were gone over to the stronger side; many who in secret wished me well still shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders over what they were pleased to call my madness; but for her, I was glad to know, there were only good words. The Governor had left his gilt armchair to welcome her to the green, and had caused a chair to be set for her near his own, and here men came and bowed before her as if she had been a princess indeed.
A stir amongst the crowd, a murmur, and a craning of necks heralded the approach of that other at whom the town gaped with admiration. He came with his retinue of attendants, his pomp of dress, his arrogance of port, his splendid beauty. Men looked from the beauty of the King's ward to the beauty of the King's minion, from her costly silk to his velvet and miniver, from the air of the court that became her well to the towering pride and insolence which to the thoughtless seemed his fortune's proper mantle, and deemed them a pair well suited, and the King's will indeed the will of Heaven.
I was never one to value a man by his outward seeming, but suddenly I saw myself as in a mirror,--a soldier, scarred and bronzed, acquainted with the camp, but not with the court, roughened by a rude life, poor in this world's goods, the first flush of youth gone forever. For a moment my heart was bitter within me. The pang passed, and my hand tightened its grasp upon the chair in which sat the woman I had wed. She was my wife, and I would keep my own.
My lord had paused to speak to the Governor, who had risen to greet him. Now he came toward us, and the crowd pressed and whispered. He bowed low to Mistress Percy, made as if to pass on, then came to a stop before her, his hat in his hand, his handsome head bent, a smile upon his bearded lips.
"When was it that we last sat to see men bowl, lady?" he said. "I remember a gay match when I bowled against my Lord of Buckingham, and fair ladies sat and smiled upon us. The fairest laughed, and tied her colors around my arm."