They were ruddy, handsome, cheerful girls, with scarcely a pin's point
of difference between them. They had brown eyes, brown loose hair, the
bloom of healthy blood on their skin. One was more fully formed, more
assured; perhaps she laughed rather less than the other; it was not
noticeable. Isoult, with sleepy eyes, regarded them languidly, half
awake. They sat on either side of her; each clasped a knee with her
two hands; both watched her. Then the elder with a little laugh shook
her hair back from her shoulders, stooped quickly forward, and kissed
her. Isoult sat up.
"Oh, who are you?" she wondered.
"I am Belvisée," said the kissing girl.
"I am Mellifont," said the laugher.
"Do you live here?"
"Yes."
"Is this Thornyhold?"
"Thornyhold Brush is very near."
"Will you take me? I am to wait there."
"Come, sister."
Belvisée helped her up by the hand. When she was afoot Mellifont
caught her other hand and kissed her in her turn--a glad and friendly
little embrace. Friends indeed they looked as they stood hand-linked
in the fern. All three were of a height, Isoult a shade shorter than
the sisters.
She contrasted her attire with theirs; her own so ceremonious, theirs,
what there was of it, simple in the extreme. A smock of coarse green
flax, cut at a slant, which left one shoulder and breast bare, was
looped on to the other shoulder, and caught at the waist by a leather
strap. It bagged over the belt, and below it fell to brush the knees.
Arms, legs, and feet were bare and brown. Visibly they wore nothing
else. Mellifont laughed to see the scrutiny.
"We must undress you," she said.
"Why?"
"You cannot run like that."
"No, that is quite true. But----"
"Oh," said Belvisée, "you are quite safe. No men come where the king
is."
"The king!"
"King of the herd."
"Ah, the deer are near by."
"All Thornhold is theirs. The great herd is here."
"Do you live with them?"
"Yes."
"And they feed you?"
"Yes."
"Ah," said Isoult, "then I shall be at peace till my lord comes, if
there are no men."
"Have you a lord, a lover?"
"Yes, he is my lord, and I love him dearly."
"We have none. What is your name?"
"I am called Isoult la Desirous."
"Because you are a lover?"
"Yes. I am a lover."
"I will never love a man," said Belvisée rather gravely. "All men are
cruel."
"I will never have a lover, nor be a lover, until men know what love
is," said Mellifont in her turn.
"And what is love, do you think?" Isoult asked her thrilling.
"Love! Love! It is service," said Belvisée.
"Service and giving," said Mellifont.