wn
soul the full, naked, unpalatable truth about himself. The fool
follows the principle which governs the libel upon the intelligence of
the ostrich, and vainly tries to persuade himself that what he does not
see does not exist, while the weak man dares not open the doors of the
cupboard hidden in every life for shivering terror of the secrets he
knows are there. Wiser wickedness deliberately airs his skeleton now
and then, and thereby the grisly presence grows less grisly, and the
hollow rattle of the bones less threatening. The articulation remains
the same, but the tone, so to speak, is more subdued.

And Stephen La Mothe, being neither a fool nor altogether weak, was not
afraid to admit to himself that Commines' angry contempt had described
the day-by-day life at Amboise with sufficient accuracy, at least so
far as the Dauphin and Ursula de Vesc were concerned. The bitter fling
at his friendship for Villon did not trouble him. It was simply the
high light added to the picture to bring out its general truth.

Yes, he had played games of make-believe with the boy, such as Louis
had spoken of half in tolerance and half with the vexation of a clever
father who resents that his only son is not as clever as himself. He
had--no, he had not philandered in the rose garden. The associations
of the word stirred him to revolt. Dairy-maids might philander,
kitchen wenches and such-like common flesh might philander, but never
Ursula of the grey eyes, Ursula of the tender, firm mouth. Ursula
philander? Never! never! The thought was desecration. What was it
Louis had said? All women are the same under the skin. It was a
cynic's lie, and Louis had never known Ursula de Vesc.

Lifting a lute he touched the strings lightly. He was in one of the
smaller rooms of the Chateau, one the girl used more, almost, than any
other, and little suggestions of her were scattered about it. On a
bench was a piece of woman's work with the threaded needle pushed
through the stuff as when she laid it aside, flowers she had gathered
were on the table, the portiere masking the door was her embroidery.
Perhaps all these forced an association of ideas. Picking the strings
out one by one half unconsciously, the air of the love song followed
the shift of the hand, and equally unconsciously his voice took up the
rhythm, first in an undertone, then louder and louder:

"Heigh-ho! Love is my sun,
Love is my moon and the stars by night