'Dear, dear!' said the Sieur d'Arnaye. 'You mentioned your maid's name, I think?'
'Alys,' said Matthiette, with unwonted humbleness.
Sieur Raymond spread out his hands in a gesture of commiseration. 'This is very remarkable,' he said. 'Beyond doubt, the gallant beneath has made some unfortunate error. Captain Gotiard,' he called, loudly, 'will you ascertain who it is that warbles in the garden such queer aliases for our good Alys?'
2.
Gotiard was not long in returning; he was followed by two men-at-arms, who held between them the discomfited minstrel. Envy alone could have described the lutanist as ill-favored; his close-fitting garb, wherein the brave reds of autumn were judiciously mingled, at once set off a well-knit form and enhanced the dark comeliness of features less French than Italian in cast. The young man now stood silent, his eyes mutely questioning the Sieur d'Arnaye.
'Oh, la, la, la!' chirped Sieur Raymond. 'Captain, I think you are at liberty to retire.' He sipped his wine meditatively, as the men filed out. 'Monsieur de Frison,' d'Arnaye resumed, when the arras had fallen, 'believe me, I grieve to interrupt your very moving and most excellently phrased ballad in this fashion. But the hour is somewhat late for melody, and the curiosity of old age is privileged. May one inquire, therefore, why you outsing my larks and linnets and other musical poultry that are now all abed? and warble them to rest with this pleasing but—if I may venture a suggestion—rather ill-timed madrigal?'
The young man hesitated for an instant before replying. 'Sir,' said he, at length, 'I confess that had I known of your whereabouts, the birds had gone without their lullaby. But you so rarely come to this wing of the chateau, that your presence here to-night is naturally unforeseen. As it is, since chance has betrayed my secret to you, I must make bold to acknowledge it; and to confess that I love your niece.'
'Hey, no doubt you do,' Sieur Raymond assented, pleasantly. 'Indeed, I think half the young men hereabout are in much the same predicament. But, my question, if I mistake not, related to your reason for chaunting canzonets beneath her window.'
Raoul de Frison stared at him in amazement. 'I love her,' he said.
'You mentioned that before,' Sieur Raymond suggested. 'And I agreed, as I remember, that it was more than probable; for my niece here—though it be I that speak it—is by no means uncomely, has a commendable voice, the walk of a Hebe, and sufficient wit to deceive her lover into happiness. My faith, young man, you show excellent taste! But, I submit, the purest affection is an insufficient excuse for outbaying a whole kennel of hounds beneath the adored one's casement.'
'Sir,' said Raoul, 'I believe that lovers have rarely been remarkable for sanity; and it is an immemorial custom among them to praise the object of their desires with fitting rhymes. Conceive, sir, that in your youth, had you been accorded the love of so fair a lady, you yourself had scarcely done otherwise. For I doubt if your blood runs so thin as yet that you have quite forgot young Raymond d'Arnaye and the gracious ladies whom he loved,—I think that your heart must needs yet treasure the memories of divers moonlit nights, even such as this, when there was a great silence in the world, and the nested trees were astir with desire of the dawn, and your waking dreams were vext with the singular favor of some woman's face. It is in the name of that young Raymond I now appeal to you.'
'H'm!' said the Sieur d'Arnaye. 'As I understand it, you appeal on the ground that you were coerced by the moonlight and led astray by the bird-nests in my poplar-trees; and you desire me to punish your accomplices rather than you.'
'Sir,—' said Raoul.
Sieur Raymond snarled. 'You young dog, you know that in the most prosaic breast a minor poet survives his entombment,—and you endeavor to make capital of the knowledge. You know that I have a most sincere affection for your father, and have even contracted since you came to Arnaye more or less tolerance for you,—which emboldens you, my friend, to keep me out of a comfortable bed at this hour of the night with an idiotic discourse of moonlight and dissatisfied shrubbery! As it happens, I am not a lank wench in her first country dance. Remember that, Raoul de Frison, and praise the good God who gave me at birth a very placable disposition! There is not a seigneur in all France, save me, but would hang you at the crack of that same dawn for which you report your lackadaisical trees to be whining; but the quarrel will soon be Monsieur de Puysange's, and I prefer that he settle it at his own discretion. I content myself with advising you to pester my niece no more.'
Raoul spoke boldly. 'She loves me,' said he, standing very erect.
Sieur Raymond glanced at Matthiette, who sat with downcast head. 'H'm!' said he. 'She moderates her transports indifferently well. Though, again, why not? You are not an ill-looking lad. Indeed, Monsieur de Frison, I am quite ready to admit that my niece is breaking her heart for you. The point on which I wish to dwell is that she weds Monsieur de Puysange early to-morrow morning.'
'Uncle,' Matthiette cried, as she started to her feet, 'such a marriage is a crime! I love Raoul!'
'Undoubtedly,' purred Sieur Raymond, 'you love the lad unboundedly, madly, distractedly! Now we come to the root of the matter.' He sank back in his chair and smiled. 'Young people,' said he, 'be seated, and hearken to the words of wisdom. Love is a divine insanity, in which the sufferer fancies the world mad. And the world is made up of madmen who condemn and punish one another.'
'But,' Matthiette dissented, 'ours is no ordinary case!'
'Surely not,' Sieur Raymond readily agreed; 'for there was never an ordinary case in all the history of the universe. Oh, but I, too, have known this madness; I, too, have perceived how infinitely my own skirmishes with the blind bow-god differed in every respect from all that has been or will ever be. It is an infallible sign of this frenzy. Surely, I have said, the world will not willingly forget the vision of Chloris in her wedding garments, or the wonder of her last clinging kiss. Or, say Phyllis comes to-morrow: will an uninventive sun dare to rise in the old, hackneyed
