"You yourself scarce need such earthly sustenance," he answered
gallantly, "for your eyes have stolen the radiance of the stars, and
'tis evident that the night dews visit your cheek only as they do the
roses--to render them more fresh and fair."

"My lord flatters well for one so young;" she smiled as she seated
herself and motioned him to sit close beside her. "How comes it that
in this wild place you have learned to speak so chivalrously?"

"When one answers beauty the words are somehow given," he said, "and,
moreover, I have not dwelt in grey Galloway all my days."

"You speak French?" she queried in that tongue.

"Ah," she said when he answered, "the divine language. I knew you were
perfect." And so for a long while the young man sat spellbound,
watching the smiles coming and going upon her red and flower-like
lips, and listening to the fast-running ripple of her foreign talk. It
was pleasure enough to hearken without reply.

It seemed no common food of mortal men that was set before William
Douglas, served with the sweep of white arms and the bend of delicate
fingers upon the chalice stem. He did not care to eat, but again and
again he set the wine cup down empty, for the vintage was new to him,
and brought with it a haunting aroma, instinct with strange hopes and
vivid with unknown joys.

The pavilion, with its cords of sendal and its silver hanging lamps,
spun round about him. The fair woman herself seemed to dissolve and
reunite before his eyes. She had let down the full-fed river of her