Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/161

Rh where the maiden leans, watching for her lover to pass in the sunrise.

window is wreathed about with strange carvings, where mocking faces look from among the vines. Against the broad sill a youth is leaning, looking into the court below where his horse is being led out and his falconer is waiting. The lad is dressed with great richness, his close crimson doublet and hosen curiously slashed and his short cloak thick with golden embroidery. His dark hair makes a cloud about a delicate wilful face. In one hand he holds a casket of amber wrought with the loves of the gods, and before him on the ledge lie papers newly signed. Close by him are two figures; a man still young and a stately woman whose hair is grey beneath her jewelled head-dress and veil. They are mother and son, for their features are alike, and wasted alike before the time by some long hunger of desire. She has her left hand on her bosom, pressed hard, almost as though on something hidden there; with her right she holds a goblet of silver to the youth, who reaches backwards for it, not turning, with an indolent gesture. He glances carelessly to the court below, but the eyes of mother and son have met, unflinchingly, in a slow smile of terrible understanding.

on the waters, yet no darkness. On the still lagoons broad sheen of moonlight; in the canals and squares of Venice shifting and clashing lights of many lamps and torches, Rh