The game was set to music, the measured beating of a tambour with the light chiming of silver bells. Some said that Marguerite was most regal; so stately she moved to the rhythm of the dance, that one might have fancied that the glorious statue of the Venus of Arles had descended from her ancient shrine to tread a measure with her maidens. But Eleanor danced with more vivacity and passion. You would have thought her of Spanish blood as she leapt and whirled, catching the ball with the lithe ferocity of a panther. For Beatrice, Richard had no eyes, for as he watched Sancie, he knew what her three kingly brothers-in-law had meant when each could name only his own heart's dearest as her superior. He saw, too, why Aldobrandino had likened her to a peach-blossom, for her complexion had that even delicate flush, not white and red in spots, but roseate everywhere, like the heart of a conch shell or the breast of a pink curlew. Abounding health spake in her buoyant step, but she was fine as well as strong. The rounded contours of her cheeks and shoulders were soft as those of a babe, and Richard had seen naught in all his life so exquisite as her dimpling smile. Would you know with more particularity how she appeared to him, look you straightway at the sweet maid in the foreground of that _Coronation of the Virgin_ which Fra Lippo Lippi painted; and from the framing of wayward little curls that make their escape from a veil of silver tissue, a tangle withal to mesh a man's heart in, from that face, I say (though the painter-monk had ne'er the felicity to see her), Sancie's round eyes will search your soul and will remain in your memory for evermore. You will not wonder then that Richard blessed God in his heart for making a thing so fair, and stood as one in amaze until the ball with which she was playing fell at his feet. Needs must then that he return it to her and join in the game, for this was the custom when one of the players dropped out, as had Beatrice from weariness. So he played, but he saw not the ball, only her who sped it, and making many faults the game was adjudged to her. [Illustration: Face of Young Girl in the Coronation of the Virgin By Fra Filippo Lippi Permission of Alinari]