er message from the Queen--"

"George," Cynthia said, with fond concern, "it frightens me to see you
thus foolhardy, in tempting alike the Queen's anger and the Plague."

"Eh, as goes the Plague, it spares nine out of ten," he answered,
lightly. "The Queen, I grant you, is another pair of sleeves, for an
irritated Tudor spares nobody."

But Cynthia Allonby kept silence, and did not exactly smile, while she
appraised her famous young kinsman. She was flattered by, and a little
afraid of, the gay self-confidence which led anybody to take such
chances. Two weeks ago it was that the painted terrible old Queen had
named Lord Pevensey to go straightway into France, where rumour had it,
King Henri was preparing to renounce the Reformed Religion, and making
his peace with the Pope: and for two weeks Pevensey had lingered, on one
pretence or another, at his house in London, with the Plague creeping
about the city like an invisible incalculable flame, and the Queen
asking questions at Windsor. Of all the monarchs that had ever reigned
in England, Elizabeth was the least used to having her orders
disregarded. Meanwhile Lord Pevensey came every day to the Marquis of
Falmouth's lodgings at Deptford; and every day Lord Pevensey pointed out
to the marquis's daughter that Pevensey, whose wife had died in
childbirth a year back, did not intend to go into France, for nobody
could foretell how long a stay, as a widower. Certainly it was all very
flattering ...

"Yes, and you would be an excellent match," said Cynthia, aloud, "if
that were all. And yet, what must I reasonably expect in marrying, sir,
the famous Earl of Pevensey?"

"A great deal of love and petting, my dear. And if there were anything
else to which you had a fancy, I would get it for you."

Her glance went to those lovely cups and lingered fondly. "Yes, dear
Master Generosity, if it could be purchased or manufactured, you would
get it for me--"

"If it exists I will get it for you," he declared.

"I think that it exists. But I am not learned enough to know what it is.
George, if I married you I would have money and fine clothes and soft
hours and many lackeys to wait on me, and honour from all men. And you
would be kind to me, I know when you returned from the day's work at
Windsor--or Holyrood or the Louvre. But do you not see that I would
always be to you only a rather costly luxury, like those cups, which the
Queen's minister could afford to keep for his hours o