Rosette listened to Théodore with much attention and as one listens to a person one loves; but what he said was so entertaining and upon so many different subjects, that her attention was perfectly natural and easily explained. And so D'Albert took no offence at it. Théodore's manner toward Rosette was courteous and friendly, but nothing more.
"What shall we do to-day, Théodore?" said Rosette, "suppose we go for a row on the river? what do you think? or shall we hunt?"
"To hunt is less depressing than to glide over the water side by side with some tired swan and thrust the water-lily leaves aside to right and left,--don't you think so, D'Albert?"
"I think perhaps I should enjoy gliding down the river in the skiff quite as much as racing madly in the trail of some poor beast; but wherever you go, I will go; what we have to do now is to allow Madame Rosette to rise and don a suitable costume."
Rosette made a sign of assent and rang for her maid to come and dress her. The two young men left the room arm in arm, and it was easy to guess, from seeing them on such good terms, that one was the titular lover and the other the loved lover of the same person.
Soon everybody was ready. D'Albert and Théodore were already mounted in the first court-yard, when Rosette, in a riding-habit, appeared at the top of the steps. She had assumed with the costume, a sprightly, resolute air that was immensely becoming to her; she leaped into the saddle with her ordinary agility and gave her horse a smart blow with her crop, so that he darted away like an arrow. D'Albert spurred after her and soon overtook her. Théodore allowed them some little start, being sure of catching them up whenever he chose. He seemed to be waiting for something and turned back frequently toward the château.
"Théodore! Théodore! come on! are you riding a wooden horse?" cried Rosette.
Théodore urged his horse to a gallop and diminished the distance between him and Rosette, but did not join her.
He continued to look back at the château, which they were beginning to lose sight of; a little cloud of dust, in the centre of which something that they could not as yet distinguish was moving very rapidly, appeared at the end of the road. In a few moments the cloud reached Théodore's side, and, opening like the classic clouds of the Iliad, disclosed the fresh and rosy face of the mysterious page.
"Come, Théodore, come!" cried Rosette again; "give your tortoise the spur and join us."
Théodore gave his horse the rein, and in a second, the animal, who was pawing and rearing impatiently, had passed D'Albert and Rosette by several lengths.
"Who loves me follows me," said Théodore, leaping a fence four feet high. "Well, well, _Monsieur le Poète_," he said, when he was on the other side, "you don't jump? but they say your steed has wings."
"Faith, I prefer to ride around; I have only one head to break after all; if I had several I would try," D'Albert replied with a smile.
"No one loves me then, as no one follows me," said Théodore, bringing the arched corners of his mouth even lower than usual. The little page looked up at him reproachfully with his great blue eyes, and drove his heels into his horse's sides.
The horse gave a tremendous leap.
"Yes! some one," said the child from the other side of the fence.
Rosette cast a strange glance at the boy and blushed up to her eyes; then, with a furious blow of the crop on the mare's neck, she leaped the barrier of green apple wood that barred the path.
"Do you think that I don't love you, Théodore?"
The child darted an oblique, stealthy glance at her and rode up to Théodore.
D'Albert was in the middle of the path--and saw nothing of all this; for, from time immemorial, it has been the privilege of fathers, husbands and lovers to see nothing.
"Isnabel," said Théodore, "you are mad, and so are you, Rosette! You didn't take enough start for your jump, Isnabel, and you, Rosette, just missed catching your dress on the posts.--You might have killed yourself."
"What difference would it make?" rejoined Rosette, in such a melancholy, despairing tone that Isnabel forgave her for having leaped the barrier.
They rode on for some distance and reached the crossroads where the huntsmen and the pack were to meet them. Six arched paths, cut through the dense forest, met at a little stone tower with six sides, on each of which was carved the name of the road that ended there. The trees rose so high that they seemed to be trying to spin the woolly, fleecy clouds that a brisk breeze carried hither and thither over their towering tops; tall, thick grass and impenetrable thickets provided hiding-places and strongholds for the game, and the hunt promised to be a successful one. It was a true forest of an earlier age, with oaks more than a hundred years old, such trees as we never see, now that we no longer plant trees and have not the patience to wait for those that are planted to grow;--a hereditary forest, planted by great-grandfathers for fathers, by fathers for grandsons, with paths of enormous width, the obelisk surmounted by a ball, the rock-work fountain, the inevitable pool, and the keepers with powdered wigs, yellow leather breeches and sky-blue coats;--one of those dense, dark forests in which the white, glossy coats of Wouvermans' great horses stand out in bold relief, and the flaring mouths of the hunting horns _à la Dampierre_ that Parrocel loves to paint on the backs of his huntsmen.--A multitude of dogs' tails, shaped like crescents or reaping-hooks, waved frantically about in a dusty cloud. The signal was given, the dogs, straining at their leashes, were uncoupled, and the hunt began.--We shall not undertake to describe with precision the detours and doublings of the stag through the forest;--we do not even feel sure whether it was a stag seven years old, and, despite our investigations on that point, we have not been able to satisfy ourselves--which is really distressing.--Nevertheless we can but think that in such a forest, so venerable, so dark, so seignorial, there could be none but seven-year stags, and we do not see why the one after which the four principal characters in this romance were galloping on horses of different colors, and _non passibus æquis_, should not have been such a one.
The stag ran, like the true stag that he was, and some fifty dogs or more that followed at his heels were no slight spur to his natural swiftness of foot. The pace was so fleet that only an occasional bark could be heard.
Théodore, being the best mounted and the best rider, kept on the heels of the pack with incredible zeal. D'Albert was close behind him. Rosette and the little page Isnabel followed, falling farther and farther behind.
The interval was soon so great that they could not hope to join their companions.
"Suppose we stop for a moment and let our horses take breath," said Rosette. "The hunt is going toward the pond and I know a crossroad by which we can reach there as soon as they do."
Isnabel drew in his little mountain pony, who put down his head, shook his forelock down over his eyes and began to paw the gravel with his hoofs.
The little creature presented a most striking contrast to Rosette's mare; he was as black as night, she as white as white satin; his mane and tail were bristly and unkempt; her mane was tied with blue ribbons and her tail combed and curled. She looked like a unicorn, he like a spaniel.
There was the same marked difference between the riders as between their steeds.--Rosette's hair was as black as Isnabel's was fair; her eyebrows were very clearly marked and very prominent; those of the page were hardly darker than his skin and resembled the down on a peach.--The coloring of the one was as brilliant and enduring as the light at noonday; the other had the transparent blushing hue of early dawn.
"Suppose we try now to overtake the hunt?" said Isnabel; "the horses have had time to recover their breath."
"Come on!" replied the pretty Amazon, and they galloped away through a narrow transverse path leading to the pool; the two horses ran neck and neck and filled the whole path.
On Isnabel's side, a gnarled and twisted tree stretched out a huge branch like an arm, and seemed to shake its fist at the riders.--The child did not see it.
"Look out!" cried Rosette, "lean forward on your saddle! you will be unhorsed."
The warning came too late; the branch struck Isnabel in the middle of the body. The violence of the blow caused him to lose his stirrups, and, as his horse galloped on and the branch was too stout to bend, he was brushed from his saddle and thrown rudely back.
The child fainted on the spot.--Rosette, terribly frightened, leaped from her horse and knelt beside the page, who gave no sign of life.
His cap had fallen off and his lovely, rippling fair hair lay spread about over the gravel in every direction.--His little open palms looked as if they were made of wax, they were so devoid of color. Rosette knelt beside him and tried to restore him to consciousness.--She had no salts or flask with her and her embarrassment was great. At last she discovered a deep rut in which the rain-water had collected and clarified; she dipped her fingers in it, to the great alarm of a little toad that was the naiad of that stream, and shook a few drops on the young page's blue-veined temples.--He did not seem to feel them, and the pearls of water rolled down his white cheeks as a sylph's tears roll down the leaf of a lily. Rosette, thinking that his clothes might distress him, unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his doublet and opened his shirt to give his lungs freer play.--Thereupon Rosette saw something that would have been the most agreeable of surprises to a man, but that seemed very far from affording her any pleasure--for her brows contracted and her upper lip trembled slightly;--she saw a snowy white breast, which was as yet undeveloped, but which made the fairest promises and already fulfilled many of them; a smooth and rounded breast, as white as ivory, and in the language of the Ronsardists, delicious to look at, more delicious to kiss.