Page:The Blind Bow-Boy (IA blindbowboy00vanv).pdf/155

 into the movement. It sat quietly awaiting the attack, perhaps even unconscious that there would be an attack, but dimly aware that some unnatural phenomenon was in process of accomplishment. Quite suddenly, casting off the semblance of the radiant bird, Zimbule became as colubrine as one of her ex-serpents, and coiled as if to strike. Campaspe watched her, fascinated; Bunny watched her, glowering.

The great night arrived. There had been more discussion about the spectator-guests.

Ask your friends, Campaspe had suggested, mocking despair.

I have no f-f-f-friends, retorted the Duke, only people that amuse me, and people I sleep with.

Well. . . ask them.

The people that amuse me are all in the p-p-p-play. . . . The theatre isn't b-b-b-b-b-big enough to hold the others.

Still, from somewhere, he had gathered an audience, a splendid, showy throng. Campaspe, through the folds of the curtain, watched them file into the theatre. Some of the faces she recognized; others were unknown to her; but the assembling of such a representative collection on a hot night in July was a feat which she appreciated. As she looked out over the house, a fluttering, fragrant acervation of luminous colour, like the flowerbeds at Hampton Court, she was irresistibly re-