on
his own responsibility. The duke could not, would not, countenance
such baseness."

"You have a good opinion of him, gentle mistress," he said in a tone
that exasperated her.

"Who has not?" she retorted, sharply. "He is as brave as he is
distinguished. Farewell. If you served him better, and yourself less,
you--"

"Would serve myself better in the end?" he interrupted, satirically.
"Thanks, good Jacqueline. A woman makes an excellent counselor."

Disdainfully she smiled; her face grew cold; her figure looked never
more erect and inflexible.

"Why," she remarked, "here am I wasting time talking when the music is
playing and every one is dancing. Even now I see a courtier
approaching who has thrice importuned me." And the jestress vanished
in the throng as abruptly as she had appeared.

Thoughtfully the duke's fool looked, not after her, but toward a far
end of the pavilion, where he last had seen the princess and her
betrothed.

"Caillette should now be well on his way," he told himself. "No one
has yet missed him, or if they do notice his absence they will
attribute it to his injuries."

This thought lent him confidence; the implied warnings of the maid
passed unheeded from his mind; indeed, he had scarcely listened to
them. Amid stronger passions, he felt the excitement of the subtile
game he and the free baron were playing; the blind conviction of a
gambler that he should yet win seized him, dissipating in a measure
more violent thoughts.

He began to calculate other means to make assurance doubly sure; an
intricate realm of speculation, considering the safeguards the boar of
Hochfels had placed about himself. To offset the triumphs of the
king's guest there occurred to the jester the comforting afterthought
that the greater the other's successes now the more ignominious would
be his downfall. The free baron had not hesitated to use any means to
obliterate his one foeman from the scene; and he repeated to himself
that he would meet force with cunning, and duplicity with stealth,
spinning such a web as lay within his own capacity and resources. But
in estimating the moves before him, perhaps in his new-found trust, he
overlooked the strongest menace to his success--a hazard couched within
himself.

Outspreading from the pavilion's walls were floral bowers with myriad
lights that shone through the leaves and foliage, where tiny fragrant
fountains tinkled, or diminutive, fairy-like waterfal