It was afternoon in the Castle. Dinner was at an end. Madame had betaken herself to her own room, for prayer and meditation. The damsels were all scattered, some to their own small rooms, some to the courtyard and the snow. Laure was in the chapel, before the altar, struggling with her newly roused demon of unrest. In the long room, off the great hall, was Courtoise, seated in Gerault’s old place, before a reading-desk, with an illuminated parchment before him. It was part of “The Romant de la Rose,” and he was reading the passage descriptive of the garden of _Déduit_. Although nothing, perhaps, could be found in the literature of that day better fitted to appeal to a dweller of Le Crépuscule, the mind of the dark-browed Courtoise was not very securely fixed upon his book. His eyes rested steadily on one word; his forehead was puckered, and there was an expression on his face which, had he been a maid, would likely have portended tears. Courtoise was not a man to weep; but he had lately fallen recklessly into the habit of his former lord, of coming here to sit with a parchment before him, as an excuse for brooding hopelessly on the trouble in his soul. His head was now so far bent that he did not see a woman’s figure glide into the room. Not till she stood over his very desk did he look up with a little start: “Thou, Alixe!” he said half impatiently.
“Yea, Alixe, Master Courtoise. Thine eyes, it seems, can make out great shapes very well, but halt an untold time over one curly letter.”
“What sayest thou? Thy words, Alixe, are like the quips of the dwarf; but thou hast not his license to say them.”
“Ahimé, Courtoise,” she came lazily round the table till she stood beside his chair, “seek to quarrel with me if thou wilt. A quarrel would be a merry thing in this Castle. For I am dull—dull—piteously dull, good master!”
Courtoise looked at her rather grimly. “Art thou dull indeed, Mistress Alixe? What thinkest thou, then, of all of us?”
“Thou also, quiet one? Well, I had guessed it. Yet methought—” she paused, with mischief in her eyes; and Courtoise, who knew some of her moods, was wise enough not to let her finish the sentence. Rising from his place, he went and got a tabouret from a corner of the room, and, placing it beside the chair at the desk, sat down on it, motioning Alixe to the seat beside him.