"Madame, that purple hair, those splendid eyes, the superb colour of those cheeks, would blaze out of a golden background as out of heaven." She gave a musical little titter. "Heaven, heaven, ha--ha." "I should be grateful for so transcendent a chance." "And you would do me justice?" "Where inspiration burns, there art soars." "You would be true?" "To the chiselling of a coral ear." "And discreet?" "To the curve of a lip." "And considerate?" "My hands are subtle." "And your heart?" "Is ingenuous as a little child’s." She laughed again, and held out her hands. Balthasar kissed the white fingers, crowded with their gems. His eyes were warm as water in the sun; the colours and the glimmering richness of the chapel burnt into his brain. "You shall paint me," she said. "Here, madame, here?" "No, my own bower is pleasanter. You can reach it by my Lord Flavian’s stair in the turret. Here is the key; he never uses it now. Avalon has not seen him these six days." "Madame, I will paint you as man never painted woman before." Dame Duessa’s bower was a broad chamber on the western walls, joining the south-western tower. A great oriel, jewelled with heraldic glass, looked over the mere with its dreaming lilies, over the green meadows to the solemn silence of the woods. Calypso’s grotto! The bower of a luxurious lady in a luxurious age! The snuff of Ind and Araby tingled in Balthasar’s nostrils. The silks of China and Bagdad, the cloths of Italy, bloomed there; flowers crowded the window, the couches, every nook. Blood-red hangings warmed the walls. The Lady Duessa sat to Balthasar in the oriel, with her lute upon her bosom. She was in azure and violet, with neck and bosom showing under a maze of gossamer gold. Her arms were bare to the shoulder, white, gleaming arms, subtle, sinuous, voluptuous. Her hair had been powdered with gold. Her lips were wondrous red, her eyes dark as wells. Musk and lavender breathed from her samites; her girdle glowed with precious stones. Fra Balthasar sat on a stool inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory. An embroidery frame served him as an easel. The man was living under the many-constellationed vault of beauty. All the scent and floweriness of the room played on his brain; all the wealth of it pandered to his art; all the woman’s splendour made molten wax of his being. As he painted she sang to him, an old lay of Arthurian love, so that he might catch the music in her eyes, and watch the deep notes gathering in her throat. He saw her bosom sway beneath her lace, saw the inimitable roundness of her arms. Often his brush lingered. He might gaze upon the woman as he would, drink her beauty like so much violet wine, open his soul to the opulent summer of her power. His heart was in a sunset mood; he lived the life of a poet.