CHAPTER XXII. HOW THE BOWMEN HELD WASSAIL AT THE “ROSE DE GUIENNE.”
“Mon Dieu! Alleyne, saw you ever so lovely a face?” cried Ford as they hurried along together. “So pure, so peaceful, and so beautiful!”
“In sooth, yes. And the hue of the skin the most perfect that ever I saw. Marked you also how the hair curled round the brow? It was wonder fine.”
“Those eyes, too!” cried Ford. “How clear and how tender—simple, and yet so full of thought!”
“If there was a weakness it was in the chin,” said Alleyne.
“Nay. I saw none.”
“It was well curved, it is true.”
“Most daintily so.”
“And yet——”
“What then, Alleyne? Wouldst find flaw in the sun?”
“Well, bethink you, Ford, would not more power and expression have been put into the face by a long and noble beard?”
“Holy Virgin!” cried Ford, “
