y; but I did not wish to
refuse another of His Royal Highness's ambassadors. What is the matter
now, if you please?"

Now I knew that this kind of personage loved flattery--for it was
nothing but this that had ruined her--and that it could scarcely be too
thick: so I framed my first sentences in that key: for, after all, my
first business was to please her.

"His Royal Highness is desolated, madam," I said, "because he thinks he
has displeased you."

"Displeased me!" she cried. "Why, what talk is this of a Prince to a
poor Frenchwoman?"

She smiled very unpleasantly as she said this; and nearly all the time I
was with her, her eyes were running up and down my figure. I was wearing
a good ring or two also, and my sword-hilt was very prettily set with
diamonds; and she always had an eye for such things.

"There can be no talk of Prince and subject, madam," I said, "when Her
Grace of Portsmouth is in question."

She smiled once more; and I saw that she liked this kind of talk. So I
gave her plenty of it.

"La! la!" she said. "This is very pretty talk. What is your business,
sir, if you please?"

"It is what I have said, madam; and nothing else upon my honour! His
Royal Highness is seriously discomposed."

"Then why does he not come to see me, and ask me himself?" snapped my
Lady. "He hath not been these three months back. Why does he send a--a
messenger?"

(She was on the very point of saying _servant_; and it pleased me that
she had not done so. I noted also in my mind that wounded vanity was one
of the reasons for her behaviour, as it usually is with a woman.)

"Madam," I said, "His Royal Highness does not come, I am sure, because
he does not know how he would be received. It seems that Your Grace's
favour is given to another, altogether, now."

"God bless us!" said the Duchess. "Why not say Monmouth and be done with
it?"

"It is Your Grace who has named him," I said: "but the Duke of Monmouth
is the very man."

She gave a great flirt to her fan; and I saw by her face what I had
suspected before, that it was not only with music that she was
intoxicated. Then she jerked her pretty head.

"Sit down, sir," she said; and when I had done so, pleased at the
progress I was making, she told me everything I wanted to know, though
she did not think so herself.

"See here, Mr. Mallock: You appear an intelligent kind of man. Now ask
yourself a question or two, and you will know all that I know myself.
What kin