allowed by Spain, and he was no
more than a French duke distantly related to royalty in the male line,
and more nearly through his grandmother and bride. The eight hundred
gentlemen he had brought with him swarmed about his apartments, making
their lodging on staircases and in passages; and to Berenger it seemed
as if the King's guards and Monsieur's gentlemen must have come in in
equal numbers to balance them. Narcisse was there, and Berenger kept
cautiously amid his Huguenot acquaintance, resolved not to have a
quarrel thrust on him which he could not honourably desert. It was late
before he could work his way to the young Queen's reception-room, where
he found Eustacie. She looked almost as white as at the masque; but
there was a graver, less childish expression in her face than he had
ever seen before, and her eyes glanced confidence when they met his.

Behind the Queen's chair a few words could be spoken.

'_Ma mie,_ art thou well again? Canst bear this journey now?'

'Quite well, now! quite ready. Oh that we may never have masques in
England!'

He smiled--'Never such as this!'

'Ah! thou knowest best. I am glad I am thine already; I am so silly,
thou wouldest never have chosen me! But thou wilt teach me, and I will
strive to be very good! And oh! let me but give one farewell to Diane.'

'It is too hard to deny thee aught to-night, sweetheart, but judge for
thyself. Think of the perils, and decide.'

Before Eustacie could answer, a rough voice came near, the King making
noisy sport with the Count de Rochefoucauld and others. He was louder
and ruder than Berenger had ever yet seen him, almost giving the notion
of intoxication; but neither he nor his brother Henry ever tasted wine,
though both had a strange pleasure in being present at the orgies of
their companions: the King, it was generally said, from love of the
self-forgetfulness of excitement--the Duke of Anjou, because his cool
brain there collected men's secrets to serve afterwards for his spiteful
diversion.

Berenger would willingly have escaped notice, but his bright face and
sunny hair always made him conspicuous, and the King suddenly strode up
to him: 'You here, sir? I thought you would have managed your affairs
so as to be gone long ago!' then before Berenger could reply, 'However,
since here you are, come along with me to my bedchamber! We are to have
a carouse there to-night that will ring through all Paris! Yes, and
shake Rochefoucauld out