ce; now I approach a woman I have never seen, and who has
never seen me, to pledge our lives together, the consideration for
this union set down on parchment, and a stipulated sum paid over in
lands and gold."

The king stopped suddenly in his perambulation, raised his hands and
said impressively,--

"I tell you, friend and host, I am no better than my fellows and
worse than many of them, but when the priest mutters the words that
bind, I say the man should have no thought in his mind, but of the
woman who stands beside him; and she no thought in hers but of the man
in whose hand she places her own."

"Then why go on with this quest?" cried young Talbot with an
impetuosity equal to that of his guest.

"Why go on; how can I stop? The fate of kingdoms depends on my action.
My honour is at stake. My pledged word is given. How can I withdraw?"

"Your majesty need not withdraw. My master, Francis, is the very
prince of lovers, and every word you have uttered will awake an echo
in his own heart, although he is our senior by twenty years. If I may
venture to offer humbly such advice as occurs to me, you should tell
him that you have come to France not to be chosen for, but to choose.
France is the flower garden of the human race; here bloom the fairest
lilies of womanhood, fit to grace the proudest throne in Christendom.
Choice is the prerogative of kings."

"Indeed, Talbot, it is not," said the king dolefully.

"It should be so, and can be so, where a monarch boldly demands the
right exercised unquestioned by the meanest hind. Whom shall you
offend by stoutly claiming your right? Not France, for you will wed
one of her daughters; not the king, for he is anxious to bestow upon
you the lady you may prefer. Whom then? Merely the Duke of Vendome,
whose vaulting ambition it is to place a crown upon the head of his
daughter, though its weight may crush her."

The king looked fixedly at the perturbed young man, and a faint smile
chased away the sternness of his countenance.

"I have never known an instance," he said slowly, "where the burden of
a crown was urged as an objection even by the most romantic of women."

"It would be so urged by Mary of Vendome, were she allowed to give
utterance to her wishes."

"You know her then?"

"I am proud to claim her as a friend, and to assert she is the very
pearl of France."

"Ha, you interest me. You hint, then, that I come a bootless wooer?
That is turning the tables indeed,