ou shall not disgrace yourself by
such an alliance."

"Disgrace!" cried Don John loudly, almost before the word had passed the
King's lips, and he made half a step forward. "You are braver than I
thought you, if you dare use that word to me!"

Philip stepped back, growing livid, and his hand was on his rapier. Don
John was unarmed, but his sword lay on the table within his reach.
Seeing the King afraid, he stepped back.

"No," he said scornfully, "I was mistaken. You are a coward." He laughed
as he glanced at Philip's hand, still on the hilt of his weapon and
ready to draw it.

In the next room Dolores drew frightened breath, for the tones of the
two men's voices had changed suddenly. Yet her heart had leapt for joy
when she had heard Don John's cry of anger at the King's insulting word.
But Don John was right, for Philip was a coward at heart, and though he
inwardly resolved that his brother should be placed under arrest as soon
as Mendoza returned, his present instinct was not to rouse him further.
He was indeed in danger, between his anger and his fear, for at any
moment he might speak some bitter word, accustomed as he was to the
perpetual protection of his guards, but at the next his brother's hands
might be on his throat, for he had the coward's true instinct to
recognize the man who was quite fearless.

"You strangely forget yourself," he said, with an appearance of dignity.
"You spring forward as if you were going to grapple with me, and then
you are surprised that I should be ready to defend myself."

"I barely moved a step from where I stand," answered Don John, with
profound contempt. "I am unarmed, too. There lies my sword, on the
table. But since you are the King as well as my brother, I make all
excuses to your Majesty for having been the cause of your fright."

Dolores understood what had happened, as Don John meant that she should.
She knew also that her position was growing more and more desperate and
untenable at every moment; yet she could not blame her lover for what he
had said. Even to save her, she would not have had him cringe to the
King and ask pardon for his hasty word and movement, still less could
she have borne that he should not cry out in protest at a word that
insulted her, though ever so lightly.

"I do not desire to insist upon our kinship," said Philip coldly. "If I
chose to acknowledge it when you were a boy, it was out of respect for
the memory of the Emperor. It was not in