She said, "Is it you, Will Sommers?"
"Madonna," I answered, "with whom else should the owls confer? It is a venerable saying that extremes meet. And here you may behold it exemplified, as in the conference of an epicure and an ostrich: though, for this once, Wisdom makes bold to sit above Folly."
"Did you carol, then, to the owls of Tiverton?" she queried.
"Hand upon heart," said I, "my grim gossips care less for my melody than for the squeaking of a mouse; and I sang rather for joy that at last I may enter into the Castle of Content."
The Lady Adeliza replied, "But nobody enters there alone."
"Madonna," said I, "your apprehension is nimble. I am in hope that a woman's hand may lower the drawbridge."
She said only "You--!" Then she desisted, incredulous laughter breaking the soft flow of speech.
"Now, by Paul and Peter, those eminent apostles! the prophet Jeremy never spake more veraciously in Edom! The fool sighs for a fair woman,--what else should he do, being a fool? Ah, madonna, as in very remote times that notable jester, Love, popped out of Night's wind-egg, and by his sorcery fashioned from the primeval tangle the pleasant earth that sleeps about us,--even thus, may he not frame the disorder of a fool's brain into the semblance of a lover's? Believe me, the change is not so great as you might think. Yet if you will, laugh at me, madonna, for I love a woman far above me,--a woman who knows not of my love, or, at most, considers it but as the homage which grateful peasants accord the all-nurturing sun; so that, now chance hath woven me a ladder whereby to mount to her, I scarcely dare to set my foot upon the bottom rung."
"A ladder?" she said, oddly: "and are you talking of a rope ladder?"
"I would describe it, rather," said I, "as a golden ladder."
There came a silence. About us the wind wailed among the gaunt, deserted choir of the trees, and in the distance an owl hooted sardonically.
The Lady Adeliza said: "Be bold. Be bold, and know that a woman loves once and forever, whether she will or no. Love is not sold in the shops, and the grave merchants that trade in the ultimate seas, and send forth argosies even to jewelled Ind, to fetch home rich pearls, and strange outlandish dyes, and spiceries, and the raiment of imperious queens of the old time, have bought and sold no love, for all their traffic. It is above gold. I know"--here her voice faltered somewhat--"I know of a woman whose birth is very near the throne, and whose beauty, such as it is, hath been commended, who loved a man the politic world would have none of, for he was not rich nor famous, nor even very wise. And the world bade her relinquish him; but within the chambers of her heart his voice rang more loudly than that of the world, and for his least word said she would leave all and go with him whither he would. And--she waits only for the speaking of that word."