Esclairmonde would have been happy if no one had noticed her benevolence to the young Scot save Alice Montagu; but she had to endure countless railleries from every lady, from Countess Jaqueline downwards, on the unmistakable evidence that her heart had spoken; and her grave dignity had less effect in silencing them than usual, so diverting was the alleged triumph over her propriety, well as they knew that she would have done the same for the youngest horse-boy, or the oldest man-at-arms. CHAPTER X: THE WHITSUNTIDE FESTIVAL 'Lady, fairest lady! Ah, suffer your slave to fall at your feet with his thanks!' 'No thanks are due, Sir. I knew not who had fallen.' 'Cruel coyness! Take not away the joy that has fed a hungry heart.' 'Lord Glenuskie's heart was wont to hunger for better joys.' 'Lady, I have ceased to be a foolish boy.' 'Such foolishness was better than some men's wisdom.' 'Listen, belle demoiselle. I have been forth into the world, and have learnt to see that monasteries have become mere haunts for the sluggard, who will not face the world; and that honour, glory, and all that is worth living for, lie beyond. Ah, lady! those eyes first taught me what life could give.' 'Hush, Sir!' said Esclairmonde. 'I can believe that as a child you mistook your vocation, and the secular life may be blest to you; but with me it can never be so; and if any friendship were shown to you on my part, it was when I deemed that we were brother and sister in our vows. If I unwittingly inspired any false hopes, I must do penance for the evil.' 'Call it not evil, lady,' entreated Malcolm. 'It cannot be evil to have wakened me to life and hope and glory.' 'What should you call it in him who should endeavour to render Lady Joan Beaufort faithless to your king, Lord Malcolm? What then must it be to tempt another to break troth-plight to the King of Heaven?' 'Nay, madame,' faltered Malcolm; 'but if such troth were forbidden and impossible?' 'None has the right or power to cancel mine,' replied the lady. 'Yet,' he still entreated, 'your kindred are mighty.' 'But my Bridegroom is mightier,' she said. 'O lady, yet--Say, at least,' cried Malcolm, eagerly, 'that were you free in your own mind to wed, at least you would less turn from me than from the others proposed to you.' 'That were saying little for you,' said Esclairmonde, half smiling. 'But, Sir,' she added gravely, 'you have no right to put the question; and I will say nothing on which you can presume.' 'You were kinder to me in England,' sighed Malcolm, with tears in his eyes. 'Then you seemed as one like-minded,' she answered.