SCENE. _Lady Ackland's door_.
_Lady Ackland_. Married!--His wife?--Well, I think I'll not try to sleep
again. There goes Orion with his starry girdle.--Married--is he?
_Maid_. Was not that Captain Maitland that was talking here just now,
Lady Harriet?
_Lady A_. Go to bed, Margaret,--go to bed,--but look you though.
To-morrow with the dawn that furnishing gear we left in the tent must be
unpacked, and this empty room--whose wife, think you, is my guest
tomorrow, Margaret?
_Maid_. Bless me! If I were to guess till daylight, my lady----
_Lady A_. This young Maitland, you think so handsome, Margaret----
_Maid_. I?--la, it was not I, my lady, I am sure.
_Lady A_.--He will bring us his wife home here tomorrow, a young and
beautiful wife.
_Maid_. Wife?----
_Lady A_. Poor child,--we must give her a gentle welcome. Do you
remember those flowers we saw in the glen as we passed?--I will send for
them in the morning, and we will fill the vacant hearth with these
blossoming boughs.----
_Maid_. But, here--in these woods, a wife!--where on earth will he bring
her from, my lady?
_Lady A_. Ay, we shall see, to-morrow we shall see,--go dream the rest.
[_Exit the maid_.
_Lady A_. Who would have thought it?--so cold and proud he seemed, so
scornful of our sex.--And yet I knew something there lay beneath it
all.--Even in that wild, gay mood, when the light of mirth filled and
o'er-flowed those splendid eyes,--deeper still, I saw always the calm
sorrow-beam shining within.
That picture he showed me--how pretty it was!--The face haunts me with
its look of beseeching loveliness.--Was there anything so sorrowful
about it though?--Nay, the look was a smile, and yet a strange
mourn-fulness clings to my thought of it now. Well, if the painter hath
not dissembled in it--the _painter_?--no. The spirit of those eyes was
of no painter's making. From the _Eidos_ of the Heavenly Mind sprung
that.
I shall see her to-morrow.--Nay, I must meet her in the outskirts of the
camp,--so went my promise,--if Maitland be not here ere then.
[_Exit_.