Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/258

 the rest in their walks along the alleys, I believe the duke would have done well to take some order with them, and to become jealous as was expected of him. But he had peered so long at his manuscripts that he had become rather shortsighted in other affairs; so that Constance and Luigi by slow degrees became lovers in real earnest on both sides, instead of on one only, as it had been at the beginning. I know not precisely how, when, or where this was declared between them, or if it were ever so declared, since the fair dialects of passion in those days led noble lovers onward by fine phrases and Platonical sentiments, so that all abrupt and sudden falls from friendship into love were avoided, and from Ville des pensées to Chasteau de par amours was a brave road through a delicious country, abounding in sunlit meadows, shady groves and rippling brooks, thrilling with the song of nightingales. Imagine then, I pray you, my beautiful Constance, (who assuredly must have carried in her bosom a wonderful spell against Sirius, for that malefic star could not hurt her nor scorch her red and white), and the little dark man with hungry eyes in his dingy scholar's vestments walking hand in hand (ah! how fiercely pressed together) down the long road; and halting now and again for a little while in the arbours by the way. But mark, now the poor poet leads and beckons Constance to hasten onward, and she cannot disobey him, and had he bade her kiss him before the whole court I verily believe she would not have refused, since he was her Lord Paramount and held that enchanting body