Part 23 (2/2)
Noel did not detect the scorn in Huguette's voice, as she answered with apparent amiability:
”You know the way to win a woman.”
”I am no jingling rhyme-broker, I thank heaven!” Noel cried. ”I pay my way.”
He caught Huguette in his arms as he spoke and sought to kiss her, but she avoided him dexterously.
”I will kiss you when you win,” she cried.
Noel would have pushed his suit further, but at that moment the great clock of the palace chimed the half-hour and struck upon his memory as well as upon his ear. He knew that the king expected him and he abandoned his love-making reluctantly.
”You are indeed a politician,” he sighed. ”I must wait on the king.”
He opened the door of the tower and stood for a moment looking regretfully at the girl, who smiled at him temptingly, then he pa.s.sed in and drew the door behind him.
The moment he had disappeared, the girl's bearing changed. Her face and gesture blazoned a world of contempt for her courtier lover.
”Fool, dunce, dolt, a.s.s, peac.o.c.k, buzzard, owl!” she stormed. Then her rage faded and she turned sadly on her heel as another man's name came into her heart and fluttered to her lips. ”The world is as sour as a rotten orange since Francois went into exile.”
Her glance fell on the lute which lay on the marble seat where Villon had left it. She took it up and began to thrum it pensively, whispering to herself the words of Villon's song:
”Daughters of Pleasure, one and all, Of form and features delicate,”
she murmured to herself. As she did so, Villon, weary of wandering in the rose alleys, came into the moonlit s.p.a.ce and saw the cloaked and hooded figure where it sat. In a moment his mind recalled the strange greetings he had overheard between the two pilgrims.
”There is another of those pilgrims,” he said to himself, determined now to solve the mystery. He crossed the gra.s.s quickly to the figure's side and saluted it.
”Hail, little brother.”
Huguette leaped to her feet and answered lightly:
”Hail, little sister.”
”Why little sister?” Villon asked in some astonishment.
The masked pilgrim answered him smartly:
”If I am a brother of yours, you must need be a sister of mine. But you talk out of the litany.”
”What harm,” Villon retorted, ”if you give me responses?”
Huguette shrugged her shoulders.
”I will give you no more than good-bye,” she said, and turned to leave him, but Villon caught her by the arm.
”You shall not show me your heels till I show myself your face,” he insisted.
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