She was a comely maid, past argument or (as her lovers habitually complained) any adequate description. Circe, Colchian Medea, Viviane du Lac, were their favorite analogues; and what old romancers had fabled concerning these ladies they took to be the shadow of which Adelais Vernon was the substance. At times these rhapsodists might have supported their contention with a certain speciousness, such as was apparent to-day, for example, when against the garden's hurly-burly of color, the prodigal blazes of scarlet and saffron and wine-yellow, the girl's green gown glowed like an emerald, and her eyes, too, seemed emeralds, vivid, inscrutable, of a clear verdancy that was quite untinged with either blue or gray. Very black lashes shaded them. The long oval of her face (you might have objected), was of an absolute pallor, rarely quickening to a flush; but her petulant lips burned crimson, and her hair mimicked the dwindling radiance of the autumn sunlight and shamed it. All in all, the aspect of Adelais Vernon was, beyond any questioning, spiced with a sorcerous tang; say, the look of a young witch shrewd at love-potions, but ignorant of their flavor; yet before this the girl's comeliness had stirred men's hearts to madness, and the county boasted of it.
Presently Adelais lifted her small imperious head, and then again she smiled, for out of the depths of the garden, with an embellishment of divers trills and roulades, came a man's voice that carolled blithely.
Sang the voice: "Had you lived when earth was new What had bards of old to do Save to sing in praise of you?
"Had you lived in ancient days, Adelais, sweet Adelais, You had all the ancients' praise,-- You whose beauty would have won Canticles of Solomon, Had the sage Judean king Gazed upon this goodliest thing Earth of Heaven's grace hath got.
"Had you gladdened Greece, were not All the nymphs of Greece forgot?
"Had you trod Sicilian ways, Adelais, sweet Adelais, "You had pilfered all their praise: Bion and Theocritus Had transmitted unto us Honeyed harmonies to tell Of your beauty's miracle, Delicate, desirable, And their singing skill were bent You-ward tenderly,--content, While the world slipped by, to gaze On the grace of you, and praise Sweet Adelais."
Here the song ended, and a man, wheeling about the hedge, paused to regard her with adoring eyes. Adelais looked up at him, incredibly surprised by his coming.
This was the young Sieur d'Arnaye, Hugh Vernon's prisoner, taken at Agincourt seven years earlier and held since then, by the King's command, without ransom; for it was Henry's policy to release none of the important French prisoners. Even on his death-bed he found time to admonish his brother, John of Bedford, that four of these,--Charles d'Orleans and Jehan de Bourbon and Arthur de Rougemont and Fulke d'Arnaye,--should never be set at liberty. "Lest," as the King said, with a savor of prophecy, "more fire be kindled in one day than all your endeavors can quench in three."