Rolfe and I were to play; he sat on the grass at the feet of Mistress
Jocelyn Percy, making her now and then some courtly speech, and
I stood beside her, my hand on the back of her chair.
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.
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