"You are the son of my father's friend, Sir Prosper," she said, "and
shall never kneel to me."
"My lady," said he, "I shall try to deserve your gracious welcome. My
father, rest his soul, is dead, as you may have heard."
"Alas, yes," the Countess replied, "I know it, and grieve for you and
your brothers. Of my Lord Malise I have also heard something."
"Nothing good, I'll swear," interjected Prosper to himself.
The Countess went on-"Well, Sir Prosper, you stand as I stand, alone in the world. It would
seem we had need of each other."
Prosper bowed, feeling the need of nobody for his part. Remember he
was three-and-twenty to the Countess's thirty-five; and she ten years
a widow. She did not notice his silence, but went on, glowing with her
thoughts.
"We should be brother and sister for the sake of our two fathers," she
said with a gentle blush.
"I never felt to want a sister till now," cried Master Prosper, making
another bow. So it was understood between them that theirs was to be a
nearer relationship than host and guest.
The Countess Isabel--or to give her her due, Isabel, Countess of
Hauterive, Countess Dowager of March and Bellesme, Lady of Morgraunt--
was still a beautiful woman, tall, rather slim, pale, and of a
thoughtful cast of the face. She had a very noble forehead, level,
broad, and white; her eyes beneath arched brows were grey--cold grey,
not so full nor so dark as Isoult's, nor so blue in the whites, but
keener. They were apt to take a chill tinge when she was rather
Countess of Hauterive than that Isabel de Forz who had loved and lost
Fulk de Bréauté. She never forgot him, and for his sake wore nothing
but silk of black and white; but she did not forget herself either;
within walls you never saw her without a thin gold circlet on her
head. Even at Mass she, would have no other covering. She said it was
enough for the Countess of Hauterive, whom Saint Paul probably had not
in his mind when he wrote his epistle. Her hair was a glory, shining
and very abundant, but brown not black. Isoult, you will perceive, was
a warmer, tenderer copy of her mother, owing something to Fulk.
Isoult, moreover, had not been born a countess. Both were
inaccessible, the daughter from the timidity of a wild thing, the
mother from the rarity of her air. Being what she was, twice a widow,
bereft of her only child, and burdened with cares which she was much
too proud to give over, she never had fair judgment she was considered
hard where she was merely lonely. Her greatness made her remote, and
her only comforter the worst in the world--herself. Her lips drooped a
little at the corners; this gave her a wistful look at times. At other
times she looked almost cruel, because of a trick she had of going
with them pressed together. As a matter of fact she was shy as well as
proud, and fed on her own sorrows from lack of the power to declare
them abroad. It was very seldom she took a liking for any stranger;
doubtful if Prosper's lineage had won her to open to him as she had
done. His face was more answerable; that blunt candour of his, the
inquiring blue eyes, the eager throw-back of the head as he walked,
above all the friendly smile he had for a world where everything and
everybody seemed new and delightful and specially designed for his
entertainment--this was what unlocked the Countess's darkened treasury
of thought.