The Duchess of Breakwater had made Dan promise at Osdene the day he went
back to London that he would take her over to her own place, Stainer
Court, and with her see the beauty, ruins and traditions of the place.
When Dan got up well on in the morning, Ruggles had gone to the bank.
Dan's thoughts turned from everything to Letty Lane. With irritation he
put her out of his mind. There had come up between himself and the girl
he had known slightly in his own town years ago a wall of partition.
Every time he saw her Poniotowsky was there, condescending, arrogant,
rude and proud. The prince the night before had given the tips of his
fingers to Dan, nodded to Ruggles as if the Westerner had been his
tailor, and had appropriated Letty Lane, and she had gone away under his
shadow. The simplicity of Dan's life, his decent bringing up, his
immaculate youth, for such it was, his aloofness from the world, made
him naïve, but he was not dull. He waited--not like a skeptic who would
fit every one into his pigeonholes--on the contrary, he waited to find
every one as perfect as he knew they must be, and every time he tried to
think of Letty Lane, Poniotowsky troubled him horribly and seemed to
rise before him, and sardonically look at him through his eye-glass,
making the boy's belief in good things ridiculous.
He wrote a note to Ruggles, saying that he would be back late and not to
wait for him, and set out in his own car for Blankshire, where the
duchess was to meet him at Stainer Court at noon. On his way out he
decided that he had been a fool to discuss Letty Lane with the Duchess
of Breakwater, and that it had been none of his business to put her duty
before her, and that he had judged her quickly and unfairly. He fell in
love with the lovely English country over which his motor took him, and
it made him more affectionate toward the English woman. He sat back in
his car, looking over the fine shooting land, the misty golden forests,
as through the misty country his motor took its way. The breath of
England was on his cheeks, he breathed in its odors fresh and sweet, the
windless air was cool and fragrant. His cheeks grew red, his eyes shone
like stars, and he was content with his youth and his lot. When they
stopped at Castelene, the property belonging to Stainer Court, he felt
something of proprietorship stir in him, and at Stainer Arms ordered a
drink, bought petroleum, and then pushed up the avenue under the
leafless giant trees, whose roots were older than his father's name or
than any state of the Union. And he felt admiration and something like
emotion as he saw the first towers of Stainer Court finally appear.
The duchess waited for him in the room known as the "Green Knight's
Room," because of a figure in tapestry on the walls. The legend in wool
had been woven in Spain, somewhere about the time when Isabella was
kind, and when in turn a continent loomed up for the world in general
out of the mist. The subject of the Green Knight's tapestry was simple
and convincing. On a sheer-cut village of low ferns, where daisies stood
up like trees, a slender lady poised, her dark sandaled feet on the
pin-like turf. Her figure was all swathed round with a spotless dress of
woolly white, softened by age into a golden misty tone, and a pair of
friendly and confidential rabbits sat close to her golden slippers. The
lady's face was candid and mild; her eyes were soft, and around her head
was wound a fillet of woven threads, mellow in tone, a red, no doubt,
originally, but softened to a coral pink by time. This lady in all her
grace and virginal sweetness was only half of the woven story. To her
right stood a youth in forest green, his sword drawn, and his intention
evidently to kill a creature which, near to the gentle rabbits, out of
the daisied grass lifted its cruel snakelike head. For nearly five
hundred years the serpent's venom had been poised, and if the serpent
should start the Green Knight would strike, too, at the same magic
moment.
Close to the tapestry a fire had been laid in the broad fireplace, and
the duchess had ordered the luncheon table for Dan and herself spread
with the cold things England knows how to combine into a delectable
feast. The room was full of mediæval furnishings, but the Green Knight
was the best of all. The Duchess of Breakwater took him for granted. She
had known him all her life, and she had only been struck by his
expensive beauty when the offer came to her from the National Museum to
buy him, and she wondered how long she could afford to stick to her
price.
When Dan came in he found her in a short tweed skirt, a mannish blouse,
looking boyish and wholly charming, and she mixed him a cocktail under
the Green Knight's very nose and offered it with the wisdom of the
serpent itself, and the duchess didn't in the least suggest the
white-robed, milk-white lady.
The friends drank their cocktails in good spirits, and Dan presented the
lady with the flowers he had brought her, and he felt a strong sentiment
stir at the sight of her in this old room, alone and waiting for him.
The servants left them, the duchess put her hands on the boy's broad
shoulders. Nearly as tall as he, she was a good example of the
best-looking English woman, straight and strong, and her eyes were
level, and Dan met them with his own.
"I am so glad you came," she murmured. "I've been ragging myself every
minute since you went away from Osdene."
"You have? What for?"
"Because I was such a perfect prig. I'll do anything you like for Miss
Lane. I mean to say, I'll arrange for a musicale and ask her to sing."
The color rushed into Dan's face. How bully of her! What a brick this
showed her to be! He said: "You are as sweet as a peach!"
The duchess' hands were still on his shoulders. She could feel his rapid
breath.
"I don't make you think of a box of candy now?" she murmured, and the
boy covered her hand with his own.
"I don't know what you make me think of--it is bully, whatever it is!"
If the Spanish tapestry could only have reversed its idea, and if the
immaculate lady, or even one of the rabbits, could have drawn a sword to
protect the Green Knight, it would have been passing well. But the woven
work, when it first had been embroidered, was done for ever; it was
irrevocable in its mistaken idea, that it is only the _woman_ who needs
protection!