But it is time I told you of my second meeting with Once-Upon-a-Time. I was lying in a bower of wild-roses which I had purposely trained to resemble the bower in which Nicolete slept the night when she fled from the castle of Beaucaire, as we have all read in the delectable history of the loves of Aucassin and Nicolete. It was the golden end of afternoon, and the shadows were still made half of gold. I was lying face down over my book, when suddenly I seemed aware of a new presence near me--as one is conscious that a bird had alighted on a bough close by, or a flower newly opened. Being accustomed to such companions, I did not look up. I was too deep in the loves of my book folk, and too anxious to finish the long euphuistic chapter before the setting sun should warn me of dinner-time. But presently a low laugh sounded behind me, and the sweetest of voices said:
“Young sir, you are very selfish with that great book there”--I may say that it was a folio _Arcadia_ of Sir Philip Sidney--“it is so big that I am sure that there is room for two pairs of eyes--”
“Come read with me,” said I, looking up and blushing.
“Nay, I am no Francesca,” she answered; “I would not interrupt your reading, young Paolo.”
“But I am tired of reading,” I said, closing the old book.
“The sun will soon be gone,” she answered. “Had you not better finish your chapter?”
“I would rather finish it by moonlight,” I answered, looking into her eyes.
“You are a saucy stripling,” she said. “I should not be surprised if you wrote these lines I just found on yonder tree.”
“What lines?” I asked; for the trees, to tell the truth, were tattooed with my verses.
“But they are so long,” I hesitated, “no less than a chant-royal--a Prayer to the Queen of Love, in five long verses, and an _envoi_! Are you quite sure you can support so much verse at one sitting--”
“I have not lived at the Court of King Renée for nothing,” she replied, laughing.
“The Court of King Renée!” I exclaimed, looking at her in amazement. “You have really lived there? How wonderful! Tell me about it.”
“Indeed, I have!” she answered, with a mocking expression that seemed strangely at variance with her romantic privileges. “O yes! No doubt it is a wonderful place for you ballad-making gentlemen. There you can strum and hum all day to your heart’s content, and your poor bored mistresses must listen to all your magniloquent nonsense, without a yawn--besides being quite sure that you don’t mean a single word of it. Yes! No woman can live at the Court of King Renée unless she is prepared for poetry morning, noon and night--Yes! and far into the middle of the night--and even, when at last you have fallen asleep again, after being awakened by some long-winded serenade, you are barely off, when, with the first break of dawn, comes another fool beneath your window with his lute and his falsetto singing you an ‘aubade!’ An aubade, indeed! And you at last so beautifully asleep. As you would have your lady love you, dear youth--never sing her an aubade!”