Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/269

Rh Amid renewed thanks and with promises to come again, the two squires bade their leave of the old Italian glass-stainer and his daughter. The streets were clearer now, and the rain had stopped, so they made their way quickly from the Rue du Roi, in which their new friends dwelt, to the Rue des Apôtres, where the hostel of the 'Half Moon' was situated.

 

'! Alleyne, saw you ever so lovely a face?' cried Ford as they hurried along together. 'So pure, so peaceful, and so beautiful!'

'In sooth, yes. And the hue of the skin the most perfect that ever I saw. Marked you also how the hair curled round the brow? It was wonder fine.' 'Those eyes too!' cried Ford. 'How clear and how tender—simple, and yet so full of thought!'

'If there was a weakness, it was in the chin,' said Alleyne.

'Nay, I saw none.'

'It was well curved, it is true.'

'Most daintily so.'

'And yet'

'What then, Alleyne? Wouldst find flaw in the sun?'

'Well, bethink you, Ford, would not more power and expression have been put into the face by a long and noble beard?'

'Holy Virgin!' cried Ford, 'the man is mad. A beard on the face of little Tita!'

'Tita! Who spoke of Tita?'

'Who spoke of aught else?'

'It was the picture of St. Remi, man, of which I have been discoursing.' 