now in the
planning of such a scheme. Let us suppose that for political reasons the
King could not come in his proper person, but having learned to love you
from report, were to seek you out incognito. Let us also imagine him so
happy as to win your love. Would you be capable of the devotion which
you demand of him?"

"Would I wed such a King whom I had learned to love, though in disguise?
Most certainly."

"Ah! dear lady, you wilfully disregard the point I make. Would you wed
this true lover, not knowing that he was a King? Let me put it still
more strongly. Would you give yourself to the _man_ you loved knowing
that he was not of royal birth?"

"Ah! that is a different question; but I answer yes, for I am certain
that my intuitions are so true that I could never love a man who was not
in every sense a King."

He smiled indulgently. "So be it, we will write such a drama and show
the world how true love pierces all disguise, and knowing its own,
challenges all dangers."

She listened eagerly, but she attributed an interpretation which he had
not intended to his perfectly simple suggestion. Placing her own
personality out of the question was impossible for one so absorbed in
self as this egoistic young creature. If Henry of Navarre were but like
his Ambassador how easy it would be to love him! and suddenly it flashed
through her mind that they were indeed one and the same. What other
signification could be placed upon this supposititious drama which they
were to evolve together?

Intrigue ran in her blood and distorted her perceptions. Transparent
frankness was incomprehensible to her, and it appealed to her romantic
imagination that the King of France should come like the hero of some
wonder-tale disguised as his own envoy extraordinary to see and woo his
princess.

Had she confided this wild idea to the experienced Malespini or to her
companion, the dwarf Leonora, whose shrewd intellect was out of all
proportion to her stunted body, she might easily have been disabused of
her error; but with an overweening confidence in the accuracy of her own
judgment she determined to weigh every sentence uttered by the man who
purported to be the Earl of Essex and draw her own conclusions as to his
identity.

To a mind preconvinced, proofs were not wanting. Brandilancia, fancying
that the little fan had fallen from the hand of Marie de' Medici by
accident, naively offered to return it. Her face clouded. "Then you do
not