The fourteenth was Melot, a maid of the kitchen. This young woman,
whose love affairs were at least as important in her own eyes as could
possibly be those of the Countess her mistress (whom she had hardly
ever seen), or of Prosper (whom she conceived as a sexless
abstraction, built for the purposes of eating and wearing steel), or
of Roy (who, she assumed, had none)--this young woman, I say, was best
pleased of them all. She was perhaps pretty; she had a certain
exuberant charm, I suppose--round red cheeks, round black eyes, even
teeth, and a figure--and was probably apt to give it the fullest
credit. Roy's indifference, or reticence, or timidity (whichever it
was) provoked her. There was either innocence, or backwardness, or
ennui to overcome: in any case, victory would be a triumph over
a kitchenful of adepts, and here was a chance of victory. So far she
owned to failure in all the essays she had made. She had tried
comradeship, a bite of her apple--declined. She had put her head on
his shoulder more than once--endured once, checked effectively by
sudden removal of the shoulder and upsetting of the lady a final time.
She leaned over him to see what he was reading--he ceased reading.
Comradeship was a mockery; let her next try mischief. For happy
mischief the passionist must fume: he had looked at her till she felt
a fool. She had tried innuendo--he did not understand it; languishing
--he gladly left her to languish; coquetry elsewhere--he asked nothing
better. She thought she must be more direct; and she was.
Isoult was in the pantry alone the second day of Prosper's quest. She
stood at gaze out of the window, seeing nothing but dun-colour and
drab where the sunlight made all the trees golden-green. Melot came in
with a great stir over nothing at all, hemmed, coughed, sighed,
heighoed. The block of a fellow stood fast, rooted at his window--
gaping. Melot was stung. She came to close quarters.
"Oh, Roy," she sighed, "never was such a laggard lad with me before.
Where hast thou been to school?"
Thereupon she puts hands upon the dunce, kisses him close, grows
sudden red, stammers, holds off, has the wit to make sure--and bundles
out, blazing with her news.
In twenty minutes it was all over the castle; Prosper's flag was
higher, and Isoult's in the mire. In thirty it had come to my lady's
dresser. Isoult, in the meantime, purely unconscious of anything but a
sick heart, had wandered up into the ante-chamber, and was poring over
a Book of Hours of the Blessed Virgin, leaning on her elbows at a
table.
The dresser, having assimilated the news, was only too happy to impart
to the Countess. This she did, and with more detail than the truth
would warrant. Half hints became whole, backstairs whispers shouted in
the corridors; and all went to swell the feast of sound in the lady's
chamber. It would be idle to say that the Countess was furious, and
moreover untrue, for that implies a scarlet face; the Countess grew as
grey as a dead fire. She was, in truth, more shocked than angry,
shocked at such a flagrant insult to her mere hospitality. But
gradually, as the whole truth seemed to shape itself--the figure she
made, standing bare as her love had left her before this satyr of a
man; the figure of Prosper, tongue in the cheek, leering at her; the
figure of Isoult, a loose-limbed wanton sleepy with vice--before this
hideous trinity, when she had shuddered and cringed, she rose up
trembling, possessed with a really imperial rage. And if ever a
grievously flouted lady had excuse for rage, it was this lady.