She no longer wore her gay
riding-dress, however, but was attired in a long sweeping robe of
black velvet of Bruges, with delicate tracery of white lace at
neck and at wrist, scarce to be seen against her ivory skin.
Beautiful as she had seemed to him before, the lithe charm of her
figure and the proud, free grace of her bearing were enhanced now
by the rich simplicity of her attire.
"Ah, you start," said she, with the same sidelong look of
mischief, "and I cannot marvel at it. Didst not look to see the
distressed damosel again. Oh that I were a minstrel, that I
might put it into rhyme, with the whole romance--the luckless
maid, the wicked socman, and the virtuous clerk! So might our
fame have gone down together for all time, and you be numbered
with Sir Percival or Sir Galahad, or all the other rescuers of
oppressed ladies."
"What I did," said Alleyne, "was too small a thing for thanks;
and yet, if I may say it without offence, it was too grave and
near a matter for mirth and raillery. I had counted on my
brother's love, but God has willed that it should be otherwise.
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