The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (12.1897)

Flower o’ the Clove

84

argued, “woman that she is, and having passed all her life with
the subjects of Florizel, surely, surely, she must have had . . .
experiences. She must have loved—she must have been loved.”
And (as if it was any of his business !) a kind of vague jealousy
of her past, a kind of suspiciousness and irrelevant resentment,
began to burn dully, a small spot of pain, somewhere in his
breast.

She, apparently, was in the highest spirits. There was some-
thing expressive of joyousness in the mere way she tripped over
the grass, swinging her garden-hat like a basket; and presently she
fell to singing, merrily, in a light voice, that prettiest of old
French songs, Les Trois Princesses, dancing forward to its
measure :

“ Derrier’ chez mon pere,

(Vole, vole, mon cceur, vole !)

Derrier’ chez mon pere,

Ya un pommier doux,

Tout doux, et iou,

Ya un pommier doux.”

“Don’t you like that song ?” she asked. “The tune of it is
like the smell of faded rose-leaves, isn’t it ?”

And suddenly she began to sing a different one, possibly an
improvisation :

“ And so they set forth for the strawberry beds,

The strawberry beds, the strawberry beds,

And so they set forth for the strawberry beds,

On Christmas day in the morning.”

And when they had reached the strawberry beds, she knelt, and
plucked a great red berry, and then leapt up again, and held it to
her cousin’s lips, saying, “ Bite—but spare my fingers.” And so,

laughing,