rily disconcerted,
although he strove to appear indifferent.

"A presumptuous knave!" muttered Francis, darkly. "He saved his neck
once only by a trick."

"Oh, the duke would not mind, now, if you were to hang him, Sire,"
answered Triboulet, blithely.

"True!" smiled the king. "The question of breach of hospitality might
not occur. What have you to say, fool?" he continued, turning to the
object of the buffoon's insidious and malicious attack.

"Laugh!" whispered Jacqueline, furtively pressing the arm of the duke's
fool. "Laugh, or--"

The touch and her words appeared to arouse him from his lethargy and
the jester arose, but not before the princess, with flaming cheeks, but
proud bearing, had cast a quick glance in his direction; a glance
half-appealing, half-resentful. Idly the joculatrix regarded him, her
hands upon the table playing with the glasses, her lips faintly
repeating the words of a roundelay:

"For love is madness;
While madness rules,
Fools in love
Remain but fools!
Sing hoddy-doddy,
Noddy!
Remain but fools!"

With the eyes of the company upon him, the duke's fool impassively
studied the carven figure on his stick. If he felt fear of the king's
anger, the resentment of his master, or the malice of the dwarf, his
countenance now did not betray it. He had seemed about to speak, but
did not.

"Well, rascal, well?" called out the king. "Do you think your wand
will save you, sirrah?" he added impatiently.

"Why not, Sire?" tranquilly answered the jester.

The duke's face grew more and more ominous. Still the fool, looking
up, did not quail, but met his master's glance freely, and those who
observed noted it was the duke who first turned away, although his jaw
was set and his great fist clenched. Swiftly the jester's gaze again
sought the princess, but she had plucked a spray of blossoms from the
table and was holding it to her lips, mindlessly biting the fragrant
leaves; and those who followed the fool's glance saw in her but a
picture of languid unconcern such as became a kinswoman of the king.

Almost imperceptibly the brow of the _plaisant_ clouded, but recovering
himself, he confronted the king with an enigmatic smile.

"Why not?" he repeated. "In the Court of Love is not the fool's wand
greater than a king's miter or the pastoral staff of the Abbe de Lys?
Besides, Sire," he added quickly, "as a fool takes it, in the Court of
Love, not to love--is