his power to promote the
ruin of the most powerful grandees in the kingdom by encouraging gaming
and all imaginable forms of extravagance, and he looked with suspicion
and displeasure upon those more prudent men who guarded their riches
carefully, as their fathers had done before them. But these were few,
for it was a part of a noble's dignity to lose enormous sums of money
without the slightest outward sign of emotion or annoyance.

It had been announced that the King and Queen would not return after
supper, and the magnificent gravity of the most formal court in the
world was a little relaxed when this was known. Between the strains of
music, the voices of the courtiers rose in unbroken conversation, and
now and then there was a ripple of fresh young laughter that echoed
sweetly under the high Moorish vault, and died away just as it rose
again from below.

Yet the dancing was a matter of state, and solemn enough, though it was
very graceful. Magnificent young nobles in scarlet, in pale green, in
straw colour, in tender shades of blue, all satin and silk and velvet
and embroidery, led lovely women slowly forward with long and gliding
steps that kept perfect time to the music, and turned and went back, and
wound mazy figures with the rest, under the waxen light of the waxen
torches, and returned to their places with deep curtsies on the one
side, and sweeping obeisance on the other. The dresses of the women were
richer by far with gold and silver, and pearls and other jewels, than
those of the men, but were generally darker in tone, for that was the
fashion then. Their skirts were straight and barely touched the floor,
being made for a time when dancing was a part of court life, and when
every one within certain limits of age was expected to dance well. There
was no exaggeration of the ruffle then, nor had the awkward hoop skirt
been introduced in Spain. Those were the earlier days of Queen
Elizabeth's reign, before Queen Mary was imprisoned; it was the time,
indeed, when the rough Bothwell had lately carried her off and married
her, after a fashion, with so little ceremony that Philip paid no
attention to the marriage at all, and deliberately proposed to make her
Don John's wife. The matter was freely talked of on that night by the
noble ladies of elder years who gossiped while they watched the dancing.

That was indeed such a court as had not been seen before, nor was ever
seen again, whether one count beauty first