ke care, I say, take
care! Be at more pains for my favour, and at less trouble for your
popularity."

"So far as that goes," answered Don John, with some pride, "I think that
if men praise me it is because I have served the King as well as I
could, and with success. If your Majesty is not satisfied with what I
have done, let me have more to do. I shall try to do even the
impossible."

"That will please the ladies," retorted Philip, with a sneer. "You will
be overwhelmed with correspondence--your gloves will not hold it all"

Don John did not answer, for it seemed wiser to let the King take this
ground than return to his former position.

"You will have plenty of agreeable occupation in time of peace. But it
is better that you should be married soon, before you become so
entangled with the ladies of Madrid as to make your marriage
impossible."

"Saving the last clause," said Don John boldly, "I am altogether of your
Majesty's opinion. But I fear no entanglements here."

"No--you do not fear them. On the contrary, you live in them as if they
were your element."

"No man can say that," answered Don John.

"You contradict me again. Pray, if you have no entanglements, how comes
it that you have a lady's letter in your glove?"

"I cannot tell whether it was a lady's letter or a man's."

"Have you not read it?"

"Yes."

"And you refused to show it to me on the ground that it was a woman's
secret?"

"I had not read it then. It was not signed, and it might well have been
written by a man."

Don John watched the King's face. It was for from improbable, he
thought, that the King had caused it to be written, or had written it
himself, that he supposed his brother to have read it, and desired to
regain possession of it as soon as possible. Philip seemed to hesitate
whether to continue his cross-examination or not, and he looked at the
door leading into the antechamber, suddenly wondering why Mendoza had
not returned. Then he began to speak again, but he did not wish, angry
though he was, to face alone a second refusal to deliver the document to
him. His dignity would have suffered too much.

"The facts of the case are these," he said, as if he were recapitulating
what had gone before in his mind. "It is my desire to marry you to the
widowed Queen of Scots, as you know. You are doing all you can to oppose
me, and you have determined to marry the dowerless daughter of a poor
soldier. I am equally determined that y