f leisure?"

He answered: "You are all in all to me. You know it. Oh, very well do
you know and abuse your power, you adorable and lovely baggage, who have
kept me dancing attendance for a fortnight, without ever giving me an
honest yes or no." He gesticulated. "Well, but life is very dull in
Deptford village, and it amuses you to twist a Queen's adviser around
your finger! I see it plainly, you minx, and I acquiesce because, it
delights me to give you pleasure, even at the cost of some dignity. Yet
I may no longer shirk the Queen's business,--no, not even to amuse you,
my dear."

"You said you had heard from her--again?"

"I had this morning my orders, under Glorianna's own fair hand, either
to depart to-morrow into France or else to come to-morrow to Windsor. I
need not say that in the circumstances I consider France the more
wholesome."

Now the girl's voice was hurt and wistful. "So, for the thousandth time,
is it proven the Queen's business means more to you than I do. Yes,
certainly it is just as I said, George."

He observed, unruffled: "My dear, I scent unreason. This is a high
matter. If the French King compounds with Rome, it means war for
Protestant England. Even you must see that."

She replied, sadly: "Yes, even I! oh, certainly, my lord, even a
half-witted child of seventeen can perceive as much as that."

"I was not speaking of half-witted persons, as I remember. Well, it
chances that I am honoured by the friendship of our gallant Bearnais,
and am supposed to have some claim upon him, thanks to my good fortune
last year in saving his life from the assassin Barriere. It chances that
I may perhaps become, under providence, the instrument of preserving my
fellow countrymen from much grief and trumpet-sounding and
throat-cutting. Instead of pursuing that chance, two weeks ago--as was
my duty--I have dangled at your apron-strings, in the vain hope of
softening the most variable and hardest heart in the world. Now,
clearly, I have not the right to do that any longer."

She admired the ennobled, the slightly rapt look which, she knew,
denoted that George Bulmer was doing his duty as he saw it, even in her
disappointment. "No, you have not the right. You are wedded to your
state-craft, to your patriotism, to your self-advancement, or christen
it what you will. You are wedded, at all events, to your man's business.
You have not time for such trifles as giving a maid that foolish and
lovely sort of wooing