s
of state," said the young woman, gravely. "There'll be no fools."

"Ah, a loveless match!"

"But not a landless one!" retorted she of the cap without the bells.
"Besides, it cements the friendship of Francis and Charles V! What
more would you? But I'll tell you a secret."

At that the company flocked around her, as though there was something
enticing in her tone; the vague promise of an interesting bit of gossip
or the indefinite suggestion of a court scandal.

"A secret!" said the cardinal's fool, rubbing his hands together. His
master often rewarded him for particularly choice morsels of loose
tittle-tattle.

"Oh, nothing very wicked!" she answered, waving them back with her
small hand. "'Tis only that they play at make-believe in love, the
princess and her betrothed! But after all, it is far more sensible
than real love-making, where if the pleasure be more acute, the pangs
are therefore the greater. She addresses to him the tenderest
counterfeit verses; he returns them in kind. She even simulated such
an illusory sadness that the duke has sent his own jester, who has but
just arrived at court, to amuse her (ahem!) dullness, until he himself
could come!"

At this the cardinal's buffoon looked disappointed, for his master
liked more highly-flavored hearsay, while Triboulet frowned and brought
down his heavy fist upon the arm of the throne.

"A new jester forsooth!" he exclaimed.

"And why not?" Lifting her swart brows, quizzically.

"We are already overstocked with 'prentice fools," he retorted, looking
over the throng.

"Ah, you fear perhaps some one may depose you?" remarked Jacqueline
coldly.

A guarded laugh arose from the gathering and the dwarf's eyes gleamed.

"Depose me, Triboulet!" he shouted, rising. "Triboulet is sovereign
lord of all at whom he mocks! His wand is mightier than an episcopal
miter!"

In his overweening rage and vanity he fairly crouched before the
throne, eying them all like a cat. His thick lips trembled; his eyes
became bloodshot.

He forgot all prudence.

"Doth not the king himself seek my advice?" He laughed horribly.
"Hath not, perhaps, many a fair gentleman been burned--aye, burned to
ashes as a Calvinist!--at my suggestion!"

"Miserable wretch! Spy!" exclaimed the young woman, paler than a lily,
as she bent her eyes, with fully opened lids, upon him.

As if to shield himself, he raised his hand, yet drunkenness or wrath
overcame caution and super