Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/247

 tempted. But after six years or more of this manner of living Constance perceived that her husband's case (and her own) was becoming desperate, and that some sharp remedy must be applied if things were to be mended, for the duke grew worse every day and began to stoop and peer and fumble about the castle all as if he had been a poor bachelor at the University, instead of being a very mighty prince, whose bearings the English Heralds would blazon in precious stones and jewells if not with the stars of heaven. This scholarly behaviour was certainly not worthy of one whose ancestors, the mighty nobles of the old time, had always been found where hard knocks were to be got, where the trumpets smote through the air, where the hammering of steel on steel was like the noise of a thousand smithies. And still less did it become my lord of San Giuliano thus to neglect his wife, seeing that the ancient princes of his line made no less of Venus than of her leman Monsignor Mars, and had loved so heartily that they furnished many a pleasant tale to the craftsmen of Paris who dressed their adventures up and tricked them out in fine language. Altogether you will agree with me that Constance had good ground for complaint and with those blue eyes and golden locks of hers had a just title to the duke's love and affection, especially since her only rivals were a lot of nasty mouldy parchments, which had much better have been left to perish decently in the black holes of the monasteries. And being purposed to cure her lord of his Ciceronianism by some means or another she con-