atching the dark eyes of the King fixed
on him with sharp significance, he understood that he was to win if he
could. So he drew with care, and pierced the kerchief thrice.

De Lacy received the bit of lace from the page and proffered it to the
Countess.

"It is quite destroyed," he said. "I am sorry."

She laughed lightly. "You owe me no apologies, and need feel no
regret. You won it honestly--and I accept it now as a gift; a guerdon
of your prowess and your courtesy."

He bowed; and as his glance sought the King, the latter nodded, ever so
lightly, in approval.

An hour later, after the repast was served, the trumpet gave the signal
for departure. As De Lacy stepped forward to hold the stirrup, Richard
waved him aside, and putting one hand on his horse's wither, vaulted
easily into place.

"Look to the ladies!" he called; "and do you, Sir Aymer, escort the
Countess of Clare. It is meet that the King of the Bow should attend
upon his Queen."

Then dropping his tones, so that they were audible only to De Lacy, he
said with a familiar earnestness: "And if you do not turn the kerchief
to advantage, you deserve no further aid."

Reining over beside the Queen, he motioned for the others to follow and
dashed off toward Windsor. In a trice they were gone, and, save for
the servants, the Countess and De Lacy were alone.

She was standing beside Wilda waiting to be put up, and when Aymer
tried to apologize for the delay, she stopped him.

"It was no fault of yours," she said--then added archly, head turned
half aside: "and you must blame Richard Plantagenet for being left with
me."

"Blame him?" he exclaimed, lifting her slowly--very slowly--into
saddle. . . "Blame him! . . . Do you think I call it so?" and fell to
arranging her skirt, and lingering over it so plainly that the Countess
smiled in unreserved amusement. Yet she did not hurry him. And when
he had dallied as long as he thought he dared, he stole a quick glance
upward--and she let him see the smile.

"Am I very clumsy?" he asked, swinging up on Selim.

She waited until they had left the clearing and the grooms behind them
and were among the great tall trees:

"Surely not . . . only very careful," she said teasingly.

He was puzzled at this new mood that had come with the archery and
still tarried--this careless gayety under circumstances which,
hitherto, would have made her severe and distant. He was so used to
being frowned upon, repr