These are the kind of women King Charles admires.
They are as distinct a race as the dogs that lie in his bed-chamber, and
follow him in his walks, a species of his own creation. They do not even
affect modesty. But I am turning preacher, like Fareham. Come, there is to
be an entertainment in the theatre. Roxalana has returned to the stage--and
Jacob Hall, the rope-dancer, is to perform."
They followed the crowd, and De Malfort remained at Angela's side till the
end of the performance, and attended her to the supper-table afterwards.
Fareham watched them from his place in the background. He stood ever aloof
from the royal focus, the beauty, and the wit, the most dazzling jewels,
the most splendid raiment. He was amidst the Court, but not of it.
Yes; the passion which these two entertained for each other was patent to
every eye; but had it been an honourable attachment upon De Malfort's side,
he would have declared himself before now. He would not have abandoned the
field to such a sober suitor as Denzil. Henri de Malfort loved her, and she
fed his passion with her sweetest smiles, the low and tender tones of the
most musical voice Fareham had ever listened to.
"The voice that came to me in my desolation--the sweetest sound that ever
fell on a dying man's ear," he thought, recalling those solitary days and
nights in the plague year, recalling those vanished hours with a fond
longing, "that arm which shows dazzling white against the purple velvet of
his sleeve is the arm that held up my aching head, in the dawn of returning
reason; those are the eyes that looked down upon mine, so pitiful, so
anxious for my recovery.
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