the statue was
touched with life and she looked at him as drawn against her will. 'If
my hand be cold, my Lord,' she answered, courteously, 'it belies the
character of your welcome.' Whereupon he laughed like one who has had
a victory."

"Beshrew me," said the king, modifying his last observation, "if women
are not all eyes and ears! I neither heard nor saw all that. A little
constraint--a natural blush to punctuate their talk--the meeting seemed
conventional enough. 'Tis through your own romantic heart you looked,
Anne!"

Quicker circulated the goblets of silver, gold and crystal; faster
babbled the pretty lips; brighter grew the eyes beneath the stupendous
towers that crowned the heads of the court ladies. All talked at once
without disturbing the king, who now whispered soft nothings in the ear
of the countess. From the other tables in the hall arose a varying
cadence of clatter and laughter, which increased with the noise and din
of the king's own board; a clamor always just subservient to the deeper
chorus of the royal party; an accompaniment, as it were, full yet
unobtrusive, to the hubbub from the more exalted company. But the
princely uproar growing louder, the grand-masters, grand-chamberlain,
gentlemen of the chamber and lesser lights of the church were enabled
to carol and make merry with less restraint. The pungent smell of
roses permeated the hall, arising from a screen of shrubbery at one end
of the room wherein sang a hundred silver-toned birds.

At the king's table Caillette recited a merry roundelay, and Triboulet
roared out tale after tale, each more full-flavored than the one that
went before it, flinging smart sayings at marriage, and drawing a
ludicrous picture of the betrayed husband. Villot, a lily in his hand,
which he regarded ever sentimentally, caroled the boisterous espousals
of a yokel and a cinder-wench, while Marot and a bishop contended in a
heated argument regarding the translation of a certain passage of
Ovid's "Art of Love."

Singularly pale, unusually tranquil, the duke's fool furtively watched
his master and the princess. In contrast to his composure,
Jacqueline's merriment seemed the more unrestrained; she laughed like a
witch; her hands flashed with pretty gestures, and she had so tossed
her head, her hair floated around her, wild and disordered.

"Why are you so quiet?" she whispered to the duke's fool.

"Is there not enough merriment, mistress?" he answered, gr