The knight behind whom the banner royal of Scotland fluttered was a man of different mould. His spare frame seemed buried in the suit of armour that he wore somewhat awkwardly. His pale ascetic countenance looked more in place in a monkish cloister than on a knightly tilting ground, and he glanced this way and that with the swift and furtive suspicion of one who, while setting one trap, fears to be taken in another.
But the lady who rode on a white palfrey between these two took all men's regard, even in the presence of a marshal of France and a herald extraordinary of the King of Scots.
The Earl Douglas, having let his eyes once rest upon her, could not again remove them, being, as it were, fixed by the very greatness of the wonder which he saw.
It was the lady of the pavilion underneath the pines, the lady of the evening light and of the midnight storm.
She was no longer clothed in simple white, but arrayed like a king's daughter. On her head was a high-peaked coiffure, from which there flowed down a graceful cloud of finest lace. This, even as the Earl looked at her, she caught at with a bewitching gesture, and brought down over her shoulder with her gloved hand. A close-fitting robe of palest blue outlined the perfections of her body. A single fleur-de-lys in gold was embroidered on the breast of her white bodice, and the same device appeared again and again on the white housing of her palfrey.
She sat in the saddle, gently smiling, and looking down with a sweetness which was either the perfection of finished coquetry or the expression of the finest natural modesty.
Strangely enough, the first thought which came to the Earl Douglas after his surprise was one in which triumph was blended with mirth.
"What will the Abbot and Malise think of this?" he said, half aloud. And he turned him about in order to look upon the face of his master armourer.
He found Malise MacKim ashen-pale and drawn of countenance, his mouth open and squared with wonder. His jaw was fallen slack, and his hands gripped one upon the other like those of a suppliant praying to the saints.
The Earl smiled, and bidding Malise unlace his helmet in compliment to his guests, he stood presently bareheaded before them, his head appearing above the blackness of his armour, bright as a flower with youth and instinct with all the fiery beauty of his race.