It was pleasure enough to hearken without reply.
It seemed no common food of mortal men that was set before William Douglas, served with the sweep of white arms and the bend of delicate fingers upon the chalice stem.

He did not care to eat, but again and again he set the wine cup down empty, for the vintage was new to him, and brought with it a haunting aroma, instinct with strange hopes and vivid with unknown joys.
The pavilion, with its cords of sendal and its silver hanging lamps, spun round about him.

The fair woman herself seemed to dissolve and reunite before his eyes.

She had let down the full-fed river of her hair, and it flowed in the Venetian fashion over her white shoulders, sparkling with an inner fire--each fine silken thread, as it glittered separate from its fellows, twining like a golden snake.
And the ripple of her laughter played upon the young man's heart carelessly as a lute is touched by the hands of its mistress.
Something of the primitive glamour of the night and the stars clung to this woman.

It seemed a thing impossible that she should be less pure than the air and the waters, than the dewy grass beneath and the sky cool overhead.