Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/756

704 fathoms deep in love as I. Love bandies me from the postern to the frying-pan, from hot to cold. Ah, Catherine, Catherine, have pity upon my folly! Bid me fetch you Prester John's beard, and I will do it; bid me believe the sky is made of calfskin, that morning is evening, that a fat sow is a windmill, and I will do it. Only love me a little, dear."

"My king, my king!" she murmured, with a deep thrill of speech.

"My queen, my tyrant! Ah, what eyes you have! Ah, pitiless, great, sweet eyes—sapphires that in the old days might have ransomed every monarch in Tamerlane's stable! Even in the night I see them, Catherine."

"Yet Ysabeau's eyes are brown."

"Then are her eyes the gutter's color. But Catherine's eyes are twin firmaments."

And about them the acacias rustled lazily, and the air was sweet with the odors of growing things, and the world, drenched in moonlight, slumbered. Without was Paris, but old Jehan's garden wall cloistered Paradise.

"Has the world, think you, known lovers, long dead now, that were once even as happy as we?"

"Love was not known till we discovered it."

"I am so happy, François, that I fear death."

"We have our day. Let us drink deep of love, not waiting until the spring run dry. Ah, Catherine, death comes to all, and yonder in the churchyard the poor dead lie together, hugger-mugger, and a man may not tell an archbishop from a ragpicker. Yet they have exulted in their youth, and have laughed in the sun with some frank lass. We have our day, Catherine."

"I love you!"

"I love you!"

So they prattled in the moonlight. Their discourse was no more overburdened with wisdom than has been the ordinary communing of lovers since Adam first awakened ribless. Yet they were content.

Fate grinned and went on with her weaving.

Somewhat later François came down the deserted street, treading on air. It was a bland summer night, windless, moon-washed, odorful with garden scents; the moon, nearing its full, was a silver egg set on end ("Leda-hatched," he termed it: "one may look for the advent of Queen Helen ere dawn"); and the sky he likened to blue velvet studded with the gilt nail-heads of a seraphic upholsterer. François was a poet, but a civic poet; then, as always, he pilfered his similes from shop-windows.

But the heart of François was pure magnanimity, the heels of François mercury, as he tripped past the church of St.-Benoît-le-Bétourné, all snow and ink in the moonlight. Then with a jerk François paused.

On a stone bench before the church sat Ysabeau de Montigny and Gilles Raguyer. The priest was fuddled, hiccuping his amorous dithyrambics as he paddled with the girl's hand. "You tempt me to murder," he was saying. "It is a deadly sin, my soul, and I have no mind to fry in hell while my body swings on the St.-Denis road, a crow's dinner. Let François live, my soul. My soul, he would stick little Gilles like a pig." He began to blubber at the thought.

"Holy Macaire!" said François, "here is a pretty plot a-brewing." Yet, because his heart was filled just now with loving-kindness, he forgave the girl. "Tantœne irœ?" said François; and aloud, "Ysabeau, it is time you were abed."

She wheeled upon him in apprehension; then, with recognition, her eyes flamed. "Now, Gilles!" cried Ysabeau de Montigny; "now, coward! He is unarmed, Gilles. Look, Gilles ! Kill for me this betrayer of women!"

Under his mantle François loosened the short sword he carried. But the priest plainly had no mind to the business. He rose, tipsily fumbling a knife, fear in his eyes, snarling like a cur at sight of a strange mastiff.

"Vile rascal!" said Gilles Raguyer, as he strove to lash himself into a rage. "O coward! O parricide! O Tarquin!"

François began to laugh. "Let us have done with this farce," said he. "Your man has no stomach for battle, Ysabeau. And you do me wrong, my lass, to call me a betrayer of women. Doubtless the tale served well enough to urge Gilles on; but you and I and