Shall I win this wonderful woman? Am I mad to
hope it? If I lose, it is a short shrift and a long rope at the end
of a dazzling dream."
He shivered as he thought and cast the rose he held away from him.
"How cold the June air seems, and these roses smell of graves." He
paused a little till his hopes took heart again. "But if I win, how
will it be, I wonder, to marry my heart's desire, to grow old
sedately, to live again with the children on my knee, a little
Fran?ois here more honest than his father, a little Katherine there
less comely than her mother!"
He flung out his hands as if he were dismissing the phantoms of his
fancy.
"Run away, my dear dream children to your playground of shadows
where you belong, for your father may be hanged to-morrow, and he
fights for love and life to-night."
Villon's reflections were fluttered by a sudden blare of music, and
a gaudy fellow in a pursuivant's coat made his appearance on the top
of the terrace and rattled blast after blast from his brazen
trumpet. In obedience to the long-looked-for signal, a many-coloured
crowd of revellers gushed from the palace and flowed like a glowing
wave of merry-making down the steps and into the walks and alleys of
the rose garden.
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