ndoza returned, could put the
threat into execution. Don John reflected, if such thought could be
called reflection, upon the situation that must ensue, and upon the
probable fate of the woman he loved. He wondered whether she were still
in the room, for hearing that the door was to be opened, she might have
thought it best to escape at once, while her father was absent from the
terrace on his errand. If not, she could certainly go out by the window
as soon as she heard him coming back. It was clearly of the greatest
importance to prevent the King's anger from going any further. Antonio
Perez had recognized the same truth from a very different point of view,
and had spent nearly three-quarters of an hour in flattering his master
with the consummate skill which he alone possessed. He believed that he
had succeeded when the King had dismissed him, saying that he would not
see Don John until the morning. Five minutes after Perez was gone,
Philip was threading the corridors, completely disguised in a long black
cloak, with the ever-loyal Mendoza at his heels. It was not the first
time that he had deceived his deceivers.

He paced the room in silence after he had last spoken. As soon as Don
John realized that his liberty might be endangered, he saw that he must
say what he could in honour and justice to save himself from arrest,
since nothing else could save Dolores.

"I greatly regret having done anything to anger your Majesty," he said,
with quiet dignity. "I was placed in a very difficult position by
unforeseen circumstances. If there had been time to reflect, I might
have acted otherwise."

"Might have acted otherwise!" repeated Philip harshly. "I do not like
those words. You might have acted otherwise than to defy your sovereign
before the Queen! I trusted you might, indeed!"

He was silent again, his protruding lip working angrily, as if he had
tasted something he disliked. Don John's half apology had not been
received with much grace, but he saw no way open save to insist that it
was genuine.

"It is certainly true that I have lived much in camps of late," he
answered, "and that a camp is not a school of manners, any more than the
habit of commanding others accustoms a man to courtly submission."

"Precisely. You have learned to forget that you have a superior in
Spain, or in the world. You already begin to affect the manners and
speech of a sovereign--you will soon claim the dignity of one, too, I
have no doub