He for a season,
And more lightly."
So to Ordish in that twilight came the Countess of Farrington, with a
retinue of twenty men-at-arms, and her brother Sir Gregory Darrell. Lord
Berners received the party with boisterous hospitality.
"Age has not blinded Father to the fact that your sister is a very
handsome woman," was Rosamund Eastney's comment. The period appears to
have been after supper, and the girl sat with Gregory Darrell in not the
most brilliant corner of the main hall.
The wretched man leaned forward, bit his nether-lip, and then with a
tumbling rush of speech told of the sorry masquerade. "The she-devil
designs some horrible and obscure mischief, she plans I know not what."
"Yet I--" said Rosamund. The girl had risen, and she continued with an
odd inconsequence: "You have told me you were Pembroke's squire when
long ago he sailed for France to fetch this woman into England--"
"--Which you never heard!" Lord Berners shouted at this point. "Jasper,
a lute!" And then he halloaed, "Gregory, Madame de Farrington demands
that racy song you made against Queen Ysabeau during your last visit.
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