"
Villon made a dash for audacity.
"I will follow you," he said, and he moved to do so, but the girl's
lifted finger stayed him.
"You may not," she said peremptorily. "I go to the queen." And so
with a swift salutation, gracious as the dip of a dancing wave, she
entered the palace and left him standing there, dazed and ardent, as
a man might be who had just been vouchsafed the vision of an angel.
He murmured to himself her words as he slowly descended the steps to
the ground,
"Oh, that a man would come to court," and on that text he wove the
hopeful commentary of his thoughts.
"Why should I not deserve her? Last night I was only a poor devil
with a rusty sword and a single suit. To-day all's different. I am
the king's friend, it would seem, a court potentate, a man of mark.
What may I not accomplish? This finery smiles like sunlight and the
world will warm its hands at me."
He was exquisitely pleased with himself, exquisitely pleased with
the world that held him and Katherine. He forgot, as lovers always
will forget, that there was any one else in the world save himself
and his beloved, and he was so wrapped in his sweet contemplations
that he did not hear the tower door gently open, did not hear the
soft, creeping footsteps of the king as he came out of his hiding
place and shuffled across the soft grass toward his plaything.
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