Yes," went on Miss Corbet in a moment,
dropping her voice, and pensively looking up at nothing, "yes; you would
have said she was really angry, so quick and natural were her movements
and so loud her voice."
Mr. James' face wrinkled up silently in amusement; and Lady Maxwell
seemed on the point of speaking; but Miss Corbet began again:
"And to see her Grace act the lover. It was a miracle. You would have
said that our Artemis repented of her coldness; if you had not known it
was but play-acting; or let us say perhaps a rehearsal--if you had seen
what I once saw at Nonsuch. It was on a summer evening; and we were all
on the bowling green, and her Grace was within doors, not to be
disturbed. My Lord Leicester was to come, but we thought had not arrived.
Then I had occasion to go to my room to get a little book I had promised
to show to Caroline; and, thinking no harm, I ran through into the court,
and there stood a horse, his legs apart, all steaming and blowing. Some
courier, said I to myself, and never thought to look at the trappings;
and so I ran upstairs to go to the gallery, across which lay my chamber;
and I came up, and just began to push open the door, when I heard her
Grace's voice beyond, and, by the mercy of God, I stopped; and dared not
close the door again nor go downstairs for fear I should be heard. And
there were two walking within the gallery, her Grace and my lord, and my
lord was all disordered with hard riding, and nearly as spent as his poor
beast below.
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