He was in rusty brown and not unshabby; but her regard swept over this
to his face, and there noted how his eyes shone like blue winter stars
under the tumbled yellow hair, and noted the flash of his big teeth as
he swore between them. He held a dead fox by the brush, which he was
cutting off; two hounds, lank and wolfish, were scaling his huge body
in frantic attempts to get at the carrion. A horse grazed close at
hand.
So for a heart-beat she saw him. Then he flung the tailless body to
the hounds, and in the act spied two black eyes peeping through the
apple-leaves. He laughed, all mirth to the heels of him.
"Mademoiselle, I fear we have disturbed your devotions. But I had not
heard that it was a Benedictine custom to rehearse aves in tree-tops."
Then, as she leaned forward, both elbows resting more comfortably upon
the wall, and thereby disclosing her slim body among the foliage like
a crimson flower green-calyxed, he said, "You are not a nun--Blood of
God! you are the Princess Katharine!"
The nuns, her present guardians, would have declared the ensuing
action horrific, for Katharine smiled frankly at him and asked how
could he thus recognise her at one glance.
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