than Boemond?' laughed the Dauphiness, her company dignity laid aside for
school-girl chatter.

'If you cannot hold out,' said Anne, 'the Scot seems a gentle youth; and,
at least, you are quit of Boemond.'

'Yes,' said Marguerite, 'his last prank was too strong for the Duke:
quartering a dozen men-at-arms on a sulky Cambrai weaver till he paid him
2000 crowns. Besides, it would be well to get the Scottish king for an
ally. Do you know what we two are here for, Clairette? We are both to
be betrothed: one to the handsome captive with the gold locks; the other
to your hawk-nosed neighbour, who seemed to have not a word to say.'

'But,' said Esclairmonde, replying to the easiest part of the disclosure,
'the King of Scots is in love with the Demoiselle of Somerset.'

'What matters that, silly maid?' said Marguerite 'he does not displease
me; and Anne is welcome to that melancholy duke.'

'Oh, Lady Anne!' exclaimed Esclairmonde, 'if such be your lot, it would
be well indeed.'

'What, the surly brother, of whom Catherine tells such tales!' continued
Marguerite.

'Credit them not,' said Esclairmonde. 'He never crosses her but when he
would open her eyes to his brother's failing health.'

'Yes,' interrupted Marguerite; 'my lord brother swears that this king
will not live a year; and if Catherine have no better luck with her child
than poor Michelle, then there will be another good Queen Anne in
England.'

'If so,' said Esclairmonde, looking at her friend with swimming eyes,
'she will have the best of husbands--as good as even she deserves!'

Anne held her hand fast, and would have said many tender words on
Esclairmonde's own troubles; but the other ladies were arrayed, and
Esclairmonde would not for worlds have been left behind in the Hotel de
Bourgogne.

Privacy was not an attainable luxury, and Esclairmonde could not commune
with her throbbing heart, or find peace for her aching head, till night.
This must be a matter unconfided to any, even Alice Montagu. And while
the maiden lay smiling in her quiet sleep, after having fondly told her
friend that Sir Richard Nevil had really noticed her new silken kirtle,
she knelt on beneath the crucifix, mechanically reciting her prayers,
and, as the beads dropped from her fingers, fighting out the fight with
her own heart.

Her mind was made up; but her sense of the loss, her craving for the
worthy affection which lay within her grasp--these dismayed her. The
life s