LA DESIREE
Prosper broke the silence there was between them.
“Whither should we go?” he said.
Isoult took the lead. “Follow me, I will
lead you. I know the ways.”
A great constraint kept him tongue-tied. The
prize was his; the silence, the emptiness, the night,
gave him what his sword had earned. He trembled
but dared not put out his hand. What was he—good
Lord!— to touch so rare a thing? He
hardly might look at her. The moon showed him
a light muffled figure swaying to the rhythm of the
march, the round of her hooded head, the swing of
her body, the play of her white hand on the rein.
Whenever he dared to look her face was turned to his;
he saw the moon-glint in her eyes. He absolutely
had nothing to say, and for the first time in his
life felt a clumsy fool.
By all which it would seem that love is a virtue going
out of a man as much as any that enters in.
Isoult was in very different plight, enjoying her
brief moment of triumph, making as it were the most
of it. When a woman loves she humbles herself,
and every prostration is matter for an ecstasy.
Her love returned, she ventured to be proud; but this
is against the grain. It is more blessed to give.
The freed soul welcomes the prison-gates and hugs
the yoke and the chain.
Just now she was on the verge of her freedom.
In thus looking at him who had been her lord yesterday
and would be her lord to-morrow, she was taking his
measure. In her exalted mood she found that she
could read him like a book. There was no doubt
about his present docility, but could she dare to
mould it? She must woo, she saw; dare she trail
this steel-armed lord of battles, this grim executant,
this trumpet of God, as a led child by her girdle-ribbons?
If hero he had proved in his own walk, to be sure
he shambled pitifully on the edge of hers. Her
superiority sparkled so hard and frosty-bright that
she began to pity him; and so the maid was thawed
to be the mother of her man. Isoult knew she
must beguile him now for his soul’s ease and
her own.
When the ride grew broad and ran like a spit into
a lake of soft dark she stopped. There was moss
here, there were lichened heather-roots, rowan bushes,
and a ring of slim birches, silver-shafted, feather-crowned
and light; more than all there was a little pool of
water which two rills fed.
“We will stay here,” said Isoult.
Prosper dismounted and helped her down. She felt
him trembling as he held her, whereat her courage
rose clear and high.
“I will disarm you”—had she
not done it, indeed!—“and dress your
hurts. Then you shall rest and I look at you at
last.”
“I am not much hurt. We could well go on.”
“Nay, you must let me do as I will now.
I must disarm you. ’Tis my right.”
She did it, kneeling at his knees or standing before
him. For once he was that delight of a woman
in love, her plaything, her toy—her baby,
in a word. She girdled him with her arms at need;
her fingers busy at neck or cheek-pieces unlaced the
helm.
