Chapter XVI: A Hawking Party 256 (2)

Quick as a flash came the answer: "I can not say of what consequence the Princess Mary is about the court; it is not my place to determine such matters. I am sure, however, she is not here, for I doubt not she would have given a gentle answer to a message from the queen. I shall continue my search." With this, he turned to leave, and the ladies, including Jane, who was there and saw it all and told me of it, awaited the bolt they knew would come, for they saw the lightning gathering in Mary's eyes.

Mary sprang to her feet with an angry flush in her face, exclaiming: "Insolent fellow, I am the Princess Mary; if you have a message, deliver it and be gone." You may be sure this sort of treatment was such as the cool-headed, daring Brandon would repay with usury; so, turning upon his heel and almost presenting his back to Mary, he spoke to Lady Jane:

"Will your ladyship say to her highness that her majesty, the queen, awaits her coming at the marble landing?"

"No need to repeat the message, Jane," cried Mary. "I have ears and can hear for myself." Then turning to Brandon: "If your insolence will permit you to receive a message from so insignificant a person as the king's sister, I beg you to say to the queen that I shall be with her presently."

He did not turn his face toward Mary, but bowed again to Jane.

"May I ask your ladyship further to say for me that if I have been guilty of any discourtesy I greatly regret it. My failure to recognize the Princess Mary grew out of my misfortune in never having been allowed to bask in the light of her countenance. I cannot believe the fault lies at my door, and I hope for her own sake that her highness, on second thought, will realize how ungentle and unkind some one else has been." And with a sweeping courtesy he walked quickly down the path.

"The insolent wretch!" cried one.

"He ought to hold papers on the pillory," said another.

"Nothing of the sort," broke in sensible, fearless little Jane; "I think the Lady Mary was wrong. He could not have known her by inspiration."

"Jane is right," exclaimed Mary, whose temper, if short, was also short-lived, and whose kindly heart always set her right if she but gave it a little time. Her faults were rather those of education than of nature. "Jane is right; it was what I deserved. I did not think when I spoke, and did not really mean it as it sounded. He acted like a man, and looked like one, too, when he defended himself. I warrant the pope at Rome could not run over him with impunity. For once I have found a real live man, full of manliness. I saw him in the lists at Windsor a week ago, but the king said his name was a secret, and I could not learn it. He seemed to know you, Jane. Who is he? Now tell us all you know. The queen can wait."

And her majesty waited on a girl's curiosity.

I had told Jane all I knew about Brandon, so she was prepared with full information, and gave it. She told the princess who he was; of his terrible duel with Judson; his bravery and adventures in the wars; his generous gift to his brother and sisters, and lastly, "Sir Edwin says he is the best-read man in the court, and the bravest, truest heart in Christendom."

After Jane's account of Brandon, they all started by a roundabout way for the marble landing. In a few moments whom did they see, coming toward them down the path, but Brandon, who had delivered his message and continued his walk. When he saw whom he was about to meet, he quickly turned in another direction. The Lady Mary had seen him, however, and told Jane to run forward and bring him to her. She soon overtook him and said:

"Master Brandon, the princess wishes to see you." Then, maliciously: "You will suffer this time. I assure you she is not used to such treatment. It was glorious, though, to see you resent such an affront. Men usually smirk and smile foolishly and thank her when she smites them."

Brandon was disinclined to return.

"I am not in her highness's command," he answered, "and do not care to go back for a reprimand when I am in no way to blame."

"Oh, but you must come; perhaps she will not scold this time," and she put her hand upon his arm, and laughingly drew him along. Brandon, of course, had to submit when led by so sweet a captor--anybody would. So fresh, and fair, and lovable was Jane, that I am sure anything masculine _must_ have given way.

Coming up to the princess and her ladies, who were waiting, Jane said: "Lady Mary, let me present Master Brandon, who, if he has offended in any way, humbly sues for pardon." That was the one thing Brandon had no notion on earth of doing, but he let it go as Jane had put it, and this was his reward:

"It is not Master Brandon who should sue for pardon," responded the princess, "it is I who was wrong. I blush for what I did and said. Forgive me, sir, and let us start anew." At this she stepped up to Brandon and offered him her hand, which he, dropping to his knee, kissed most gallantly.

"Your highness, you can well afford to offend when you have so sweet and gracious a talent for making amends. 'A wrong acknowledged,' as some one has said, 'becomes an obligation.'" He looked straight into the girl's eyes as he said this, and his gaze was altogether too strong for her, so the lashes fell. She flushed and said with a smile that brought the dimples:

"I thank you; that is a real compliment." Then laughingly: "Much better than extravagant comments on one's skin, and eyes, and hair. We are going to the queen at the marble landing. Will you walk with us, sir?" And they strolled away together, while the other girls followed in a whispering, laughing group.

Was there ever so glorious a calm after such a storm?

"Then those mythological compliments," continued Mary, "don't you dislike them?"

"I can't say that I have ever received many--none that I recall," replied Brandon, with a perfectly straight face, but with a smile trying its best to break out.

"Oh! you have not? Well! how would you like to have somebody always telling you that Apollo was humpbacked and misshapen compared with you; that Endymion would have covered his face had he but seen yours, and so on?"

"I don't know, but I think I should like it--from some persons," he replied, looking ever so innocent.

This savored of familiarity after so brief an acquaintance, and caused the princess to glance up in slight surprise; but only for the instant, for his innocent look disarmed her.

"I have a mind to see," she returned, laughing and throwing her head back, as she looked up at him out of the corner of her lustrous eyes. "But I will pay you a better compliment. I positively thank you for the rebuke. I do many things like that, for which I am always sorry. Oh! you don't know how difficult it is to be a good princess." And she shook her head, with a gathering of little trouble-wrinkles in her forehead, as much as to say, "There is no getting away from it, though." Then she breathed a soft little sigh of tribulation as they walked on.

"I know it must be a task to be good when everybody flatters even one's shortcomings," said Brandon, and then continued in a way that, I am free to confess, was something priggish: "It is almost impossible for us to see our own faults, even when others are kind enough to point them out, for they are right ugly things and unpleasant to look upon. But lacking those outside monitors, one must all the more cultivate the habit of constant inlooking and self-examination. If we are only brave enough to confront our faults and look them in the face, ugly as they are, we shall be sure to overcome the worst of them. A striving toward good will achieve at least a part of it."

"Oh!" returned the princess, "but what _is_ good and what _is_ wrong? So often we can not tell them apart until we look back at what we have done, and then it is all too late. I truly wish to be good more than I desire anything else in the world. I am so ignorant and helpless, and have such strong inclinations to do wrong that sometimes I seem to be almost all wrong. The priests say so much, but tell us so little. They talk about St. Peter and St. Paul, and a host of other saints and holy fathers and what-nots, but fail to tell us what we need every moment of our lives; that is, how to know the right when we see it, and how to do it; and how to know the wrong and how to avoid it. They ask us to believe so much, and insist that faith is the sum of virtue, and the lack of it the sum of sin; that to faith all things are added; but we might believe every syllable of their whole disturbing creed, and then spoil it all through blind ignorance of what is right and what is wrong."

"As to knowing right and wrong," replied Brandon, "I think I can give you a rule which, although it may not cover the whole ground, is excellent for every-day use. It is this: Whatever makes others unhappy is wrong; whatever makes the world happier is good. As to how we are always to do this, I can not tell you. One has to learn that by trying. We can but try, and if we fail altogether, there is still virtue in every futile effort toward the right."

Mary bent her head as she walked along in thought.

"What you have said is the only approach to a rule for knowing and doing the right I have ever heard. Now what do you think of me as a flatterer? But it will do no good; the bad is in me too strong; it always does itself before I can apply any rule, or even realize what is coming." And again she shook her head with a bewitching little look of trouble.

"Pardon me, your highness; but there is no bad _in_ you. It has been put _on_ you by others, and is all on the outside; there is none of it in your heart at all. That evil which you think comes out of you, simply falls from you; your heart is all right, or I have greatly misjudged you." He was treating her almost as if she were a child.

"I fear, Master Brandon, you are the most adroit flatterer of all," said Mary, shaking her head and looking up at him with a side glance, "people have deluged me with all kinds of flattery--I have the different sorts listed and labeled--but no one has ever gone to the extravagant length of calling me good. Perhaps they think I do not care for that; but I like it best. I don't like the others at all. If I am beautiful or not, it is as God made me, and I have nothing to do with it, and desire no credit, but if I could only be good it might be my own doing, perhaps, and I ought to have praise. I wonder if there is really and truly any good in me, and if you have read me aright." Then looking up at him with a touch of consternation: "Or are you laughing at me?"

Brandon wisely let the last suggestion pass unnoticed.

"I am sure that I am right; you have glorious capacities for good, but alas! corresponding possibilities for evil. It will eventually all depend upon the man you marry. He can make out of you a perfect woman, or the reverse." Again there was the surprised expression in Mary's face, but Brandon's serious look disarmed her.

"I fear you are right, as to the reverse, at any rate; and the worst of it is, I shall never be able to choose a man to help me, but shall sooner or later be compelled to marry the creature who will pay the greatest price."

"God forbid!" said Brandon reverently.

They were growing rather serious, so Mary turned the conversation again into the laughing mood, and said, with a half sigh: "Oh! I hope you are right about the possibilities for good, but you do not know. Wait until you have seen more of me."

"I certainly hope I shall not have long to wait."

The surprised eyes again glanced quickly up to the serious face, but the answer came: "That you shall not:--but here is the queen, and I suppose we must have the benediction." Brandon understood her hint--that the preaching was over,--and taking it for his dismissal, playfully lifted his hands in imitation of the old Bishop of Canterbury, and murmured the first line of the Latin benediction. Then they both laughed and courtesied, and Brandon walked away.

_CHAPTER IV_

_A Lesson in Dancing_

I laughed heartily when Jane told me of the tilt between Brandon and Princess Mary, the latter of whom was in the habit of saying unkind things and being thanked for them.

Brandon was the wrong man to say them to, as Mary learned. He was not hot-tempered; in fact, just the reverse, but he was the last man to brook an affront, and the quickest to resent, in a cool-headed, dangerous way, an intentional offense.

He respected himself and made others do the same, or seem to do so, at least. He had no vanity--which is but an inordinate desire for those qualities that bring self-respect, and often the result of conscious demerit--but he knew himself, and knew that he was entitled to his own good opinion. He was every inch a man, strong, intelligent and brave to temerity, with a reckless disregard of consequences, which might have been dangerous had it not been tempered by a dash of prudence and caution that gave him ballast.

I was not surprised when I heard of the encounter; for I knew enough of him to be sure that Mary's high-handedness would meet its counterpart in my cool friend Brandon. It was, however, an unfortunate victory, and what all Mary's beauty and brightness would have failed to do, her honest, open acknowledgment of wrong, following so quickly upon the heels of her fault, accomplished easily. It drew him within the circle of her fatal attractions, and when Jane told me of it, I knew his fate was sealed, and that, sooner or later, his untouched heart and cool head would fall victim to the shafts that so surely winged all others.

It might, and probably would, be "later," since, as Brandon had said, he was not one of those who wear the heart upon the sleeve. Then he had that strong vein of prudence and caution, which, in view of Mary's unattainableness, would probably come to his help. But never was man's heart strong enough to resist Mary Tudor's smile for long.

There was this difference between Brandon and most others--he would be slow to love, but when love should once fairly take root in his intense nature, he would not do to trifle with.

The night after the meeting, Mary cuddled up to Jane, who slept with her, and whispered, half bashfully:

"Tell me all about Brandon; I am interested in him. I believe if I knew more persons like him I should be a better girl, notwithstanding he is one of the boldest men I ever knew. He says anything he wishes, and, with all his modest manner, is as cool with me as if I were a burgher's daughter. His modesty is all on the outside, but it is pretty, and pretty things must be on the outside to be useful. I wonder if Judson thought him modest?"

Jane talked of Brandon to Mary, who was in an excellent humor, until the girls fell asleep.

When Jane told me of this I became frightened; for the surest way to any woman's heart is to convince her that you make her better, and arouse in her breast purer impulses and higher aspirations. It would be bad enough should Brandon fall in love with the princess, which was almost sure to happen, but for them to fall in love with each other meant Brandon's head upon the block, and Mary's heart bruised, broken and empty for life. Her strong nature, filled to the brim with latent passion, was the stuff of which love makes a conflagration that burns to destruction; and should she learn to love Brandon, she would move heaven and earth to possess him.

She whose every desire from childhood up had been gratified, whose every whim seemed to her a paramount necessity, would stop at nothing when the dearest wish a woman's heart can coin was to be gained or lost. Brandon's element of prudence might help him, and might forestall any effort on his part to win her, but Mary had never heard of prudence, and man's caution avails but little when set against woman's daring. In case they both should love, they were sure to try for each other, and in trying were equally sure to find ruin and desolation.

A few evenings after this I met the princess in the queen's drawing-room. She beckoned me to her, and, resting her elbows on the top of a cabinet, her chin in her hands, said: "I met your friend, Captain Brandon, a day or two ago. Did he tell you?"

"No," I answered; "Jane told me, but he has not mentioned it."

It was true Brandon had not said a word of the matter, and I had not spoken of it, either. I wanted to see how long he would remain silent concerning an adventure that would have set most men of the court boasting at a great rate. To have a tilt with the ever-victorious Mary, and to come off victor, was enough, I think, to loosen any tongue less given to bragging than Brandon's.

"So," continued Mary, evidently somewhat piqued, "he did not think his presentation to me a thing worth mentioning? We had a little passage-at-arms, and, to tell you the truth, I came off second best, and had to acknowledge it, too. Now, what do you think of this new friend of yours? And he did not boast about having the better of me? After all, there is more virtue in his silence than I at first thought." And she threw back her head, and clapped her hands and laughed with the most contagious little ripple you ever heard. She seemed not to grieve over her defeat, but dimpled as though it were a huge joke, the thought of which rather pleased her than otherwise. Victory had grown stale for her, although so young.

"What do I think of my new friend?" I repeated after her; and that gave me a theme upon which I could enlarge eloquently. I told her of his learning, notwithstanding the fact that he had been in the continental wars ever since he was a boy. I repeated to her stories of his daring and bravery, that had been told to me by his uncle, the Master of the Horse, and others, and then I added what I knew Lady Jane had already said. I had expected to be brief, but to my surprise found a close and interested listener, even to the twice-told parts, and drew my story out a little, to the liking of us both.

"Your friend has an earnest advocate in you, Sir Edwin," said the princess.

"That he has," I replied. "There is nothing too good to say of him."

I knew that Mary, with her better, clearer brain, held the king almost in the palm of her hand, so I thought to advance Brandon's fortune by a timely word.

"I trust the king will see fit to favor him, and I hope that you will speak a word in his behalf, should the opportunity occur."

"What in the name of heaven have we to give him?" cried Mary impatiently, for she kept an eye on things political, even if she were only a girl--"the king has given away everything that can be given, already, and now that the war is over, and men are coming home, there are hundreds waiting for more. My father's great treasure is squandered, to say nothing of the money collected from Empson, Dudley, and the other commissioners. There is nothing to give unless it be the titles and estate of the late Duke of Suffolk. Perhaps the king will give these to your paragon, if you will paint him in as fair a light as you have drawn him for me." Then throwing back her head with a laugh, "Ask him."

"It would be none too much for his deserts," I replied, falling in with her humor.

"We will so arrange it then," went on Mary, banteringly; "Captain Brandon no longer, but Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. How sounds it, Master Caskoden?"

"Sweet in my ears," I replied.

"I really believe you would have the king's crown for him, you absurd man, if you could get it. We must have so interesting a person at court; I shall at least see that he is presented to the queen at once. I wonder if he dances; I suppose not. He has probably been too busy cutting and thrusting." And she laughed again at her own pleasantry.

When the mirth began to gather in her face and the dimples came responsive to her smiles; when she threw back her perfectly poised head, stretching her soft, white throat, so full and round and beautiful, half closing her big brown eyes till they shone again from beneath the shade of those long, black sweeping lashes; when her red lips parted, showing her teeth of pearl, and she gave the little clap of her hands--a sort of climax to the soft, low, rippling laugh--she made a picture of such exquisite loveliness that it is no wonder men were fools about her, and caught love as one catches a contagion. I had it once, as you already know, and had recovered. All that prevented a daily relapse was my fair, sweet antidote, Jane, whose image rested in my heart, a lasting safeguard.

"I wonder if your prodigy plays cards; that is, such as we ladies play?" asked Mary. "You say he has lived much in France, where the game was invented, but I have no doubt he would scorn to waste his time at so frivolous a pursuit, when he might be slaughtering armies single-handed and alone."

"I do not know as to his dancing and card-playing, but I dare venture a wager he does both," I replied, not liking her tone of sarcasm. She had yet to learn who Brandon was.

"I will hazard ten crowns," said Mary quickly, for she loved a wager and was a born gambler.

"Taken," said I.

"We will try him on both to-morrow night in my drawing-room," she continued. "You bring him up, but tell no one. I will have Jane there with her lute, which will not frighten you away, I know, and we will try his step. I will have cards, too, and we shall see what he can do at triumph. Just we four--no one else at all. You and Jane, the new Duke of Suffolk and I. Oh! I can hardly wait," and she fairly danced with joyous anticipation.

The thing had enough irregularity to give it zest, for while Mary often had a few young people in her drawing-room, the companies were never so small as two couples only, and the king and queen, to make up for greater faults, were wonderful sticklers in the matter of little proprieties.

The ten-crown wager, too, gave spice to it, but to do her justice she cared very little for that. The princess loved gambling purely for gambling's sake, and with her, the next best thing to winning was losing.

When I went to my room that night, I awakened Brandon and told him of the distinguished honor that awaited him.

"Well! I'll be"--but he did not say what he would "be." He always halted before an oath, unless angry, which was seldom, but then beware!--he had learned to swear in Flanders. "How she did fly at me the other morning. I never was more surprised in all my life. For once I was almost caught with my guard down, and did not know how to parry the thrust. I mumbled over some sort of a lame retaliation and beat a retreat. It was so unjust and uncalled-for that it made me angry; but she was so gracious in her amends that I was almost glad it happened. I like a woman who can be as savage as the very devil when it pleases her; she usually has in store an assortment of possibilities for the other extreme."

"She told me of your encounter," I returned, "but said she had come off second best, and seemed to think her overthrow a huge joke."

"The man who learns to know what a woman thinks and feels will have a great deal of valuable information," he replied; and then turned over for sleep, greatly pleased that one woman thought as she did.

I was not sure he would be so highly flattered if he knew that he had been invited to settle a wager, and to help Mary to a little sport.

As to the former, I had an interest there myself, although I dared not settle the question by asking Brandon if he played cards and danced; and, as to the matter of Mary's sport, I felt there was but little, if any, danger of her having too much of it at his expense, Brandon being well able to care for himself in that respect.

The next evening, at the appointed time, we wended our way, by an unfrequented route, and presented ourselves, as secretly as possible, at the drawing-room of the princess.

The door was opened by Lady Jane, and we met the two girls almost at the threshold. I had told Brandon of the bantering conversation about the title and estates of the late Duke of Suffolk, and he had laughed over it in the best of humor. If quick to retaliate for an intentional offense, he was not thin-skinned at a piece of pleasantry, and had none of that stiff, sensitive dignity, so troublesome to one's self and friends.

Now, Jane and Mary were always bantering me because I was short, and inclined to be--in fact--round, but I did not care. It made them laugh, and their laughing was so contagious it made me laugh, too, and we all enjoyed it. I would give a pound sterling any time for a good laugh; and that, I think, is why I have always been--round.

So, upon entering, I said:

"His grace, the Duke of Suffolk, ladies."

They each made a sweeping courtesy, with hand on breast, and gravely saluted him:

"Your grace! good even'."

Brandon's bow was as deep and graceful, if that were possible, as theirs, and when he moved on into the room it was with a little halt in his step, and a big blowing out of the cheeks, in ludicrous imitation of his late lamented predecessor, that sent the girls into peals of soft laughter and put us all at our ease immediately.

Ah! what a thing it is to look back upon; that time of life when one finds his heaven in a ready laugh!

"Be seated all," said the princess. "This is to be without ceremony, and only we four. No one knows a word of it. Did you tell any one, Sir Edwin?"

"Perish the thought," I exclaimed.

She turned her face toward Brandon, "--but I know you did not. I've heard how discreet you were about another matter. Well, no one knows it then, and we can have a famous evening. You did not expect this, Master Brandon, after my reception of you the other morning? Were you not surprised when Sir Edwin told you?"

"I think I can safely say that I was prepared not to be surprised at anything your highness might graciously conclude to do--after my first experience," he answered, smiling.

"Indeed?" returned Mary with elevated eyebrows, and a rising inflection on the last syllable of the word. It was now her turn for a little surprise. "Well, we'll try to find some way to surprise you one of these days;" and the time came when she was full of surprises for him. Mary continued: "But let us not talk about the other day. Of what use are 'other days,' anyway? Before the evening is over, Master Brandon, we want you to give us another sermon," and she laughed, setting off three other laughs as hearty and sincere as if she had uttered the rarest witticism on earth.

The princess had told Jane and Jane had told me of the "Sermon in the Park," as Mary called it.

"Jane needs it as much as I," said the princess.

"I can't believe that," responded Brandon, looking at Jane with a softening glance quite too admiring and commendatory to suit me; for I was a jealous little devil.

The eyebrows went up again.

"Oh! you think she doesn't? Well, in truth, Master Brandon, there is one failing that can not be laid at your door; you are no flatterer." For answer Brandon laughed, and that gave us the cue, and away we went in a rippling chorus, all about nothing. Some persons may call our laughter foolish, but there are others who consider it the height of all wisdom. St. George! I'd give my Garter for just one other laugh like that; for just one other hour of youth's dancing blood and glowing soul-warmth; of sweet, unconscious, happy heart-beat and paradise-creating joy in everything.

After a few minutes of gay conversation, in which we all joined, Mary asked: "What shall we do? Will one of you suggest something?"

Jane sat there looking so demure you would have thought mischief could not live within a league of her, but those very demure girls are nearly always dangerous. She said, oh! so innocently:

"Would you like to dance? If so, I will play." And she reached for her lute, which was by her side.

"Yes, that will be delightful. Master Brandon, will you dance with me?" asked the princess, with a saucy little laugh, her invitation meaning so much more to three of us than to Brandon. Jane and I joined in the laugh, and when Mary clapped her hands that set Brandon off, too, for he thought it the quaintest, prettiest little gesture in the world, and was all unconscious that our laugh was at his expense.

Brandon did not answer Mary's invitation--the fit of laughter had probably put it out of his mind--so she, evidently anxious to win or lose her wager at once, again asked him if he danced.

"Oh, pardon me. Of course. Thank you." And he was on his feet beside her chair in an instant ready for the dance. This time the girl's laugh, though equally merry, had another tone, for she knew she had lost.

Out they stepped upon the polished floor, he holding her hand in his, awaiting the pause in the music to take the step. I shall never forget the sight of those two standing there together--Mary, dark-eyed and glowing; Brandon, almost rosy, with eyes that held the color of a deep spring sky, and a wealth of flowing curls crowning his six feet of perfect manhood, strong and vigorous as a young lion. Mary, full of beauty-curves and graces, a veritable Venus in her teens, and Brandon, an Apollo, with a touch of Hercules, were a complement each to the other that would surely make a perfect one.

When the music started, off they went, heel and toe, bow and courtesy, a step forward and a step back, in perfect time and rhythm--a poem of human motion. Could Brandon dance? The princess had her answer in the first ten steps. Nothing could be more graceful than Brandon's dancing, unless it were Mary's. Her slightest movement was grace itself. When she would throw herself backward in thrusting out her toe, and then swing forward with her head a little to one side, her uplifted arm undulating like the white neck of a swan,--for her sleeve, which was slit to the shoulder, fell back and left it bare,--she was a sight worth a long journey to see. And when she looked up to Brandon with a laugh in her brown eyes, and a curving smile just parting her full, red lips, that a man would give his very luck to--but I had better stop.

"Was there ever a goodlier couple?" I asked Jane, by whose side I sat.

"Never," she responded as she played, and, strange to say, I was jealous because she agreed with me. I was jealous because I feared it was Brandon's beauty to which she referred. That I thought would naturally appeal to her. Had he been less handsome, I should perhaps have thought nothing of it, but I knew what my feelings were toward Mary, and I judged, or rather misjudged, Jane by myself. I supposed she would think of Brandon as I could not help thinking of Mary. Was anything in heaven or earth ever so beautiful as that royal creature, dancing there, daintily holding up her skirts with thumb and first finger, just far enough to show a distracting little foot and ankle, and make one wish he had been born a sheep rather than a sentient man who had to live without Mary Tudor? Yet, strange as it may seem, I was really and wholly in love with Jane; in fact, I loved no one but Jane, and my feeling of intense admiration for Mary was but a part of man's composite inconstancy.

A woman--God bless her--if she really loves a man, has no thought of any other; one at a time is all-sufficient; but a man may love one woman with the warmth of a simoon, and at the same time feel like a good healthy south wind toward a dozen others. That is the difference between a man and a woman--the difference between the good and the bad. One average woman has enough goodness in her to supply an army of men.

Mary and Brandon went on dancing long after Jane was tired of playing. It was plain to see that the girl was thoroughly enjoying it. They kept up a running fire of small talk, and laughed, and smiled, and bowed, and courtesied, all in perfect time and grace.

It is more difficult than you may think, if you have never tried, to keep up a conversation and dance La Galliard, at the same time--one is apt to balk the other--but Brandon's dancing was as easy to him as walking, and, although so small a matter, I could see it raised him vastly in the estimation of both girls.

"Do you play triumph?" I heard Mary ask in the midst of the dancing.

"Oh! yes," replied Brandon, much to my delight, as the princess threw a mischievous, knowing glance over her shoulder to see if I had heard. She at once saw I had, and this, of course, settled the wager.

"And," continued Brandon, "I also play the new game, 'honor and ruff,' which is more interesting than triumph."

"Oh! do you?" cried Mary. "That will more than compensate for the loss of my ten crowns. Let us sit down at once; I have been wishing to learn, but no one here seems to know it. In France, they say, it is the only game. I suppose there is where you learned it? Perhaps you know their new dances too! I have heard they are delightful!"

"Yes, I know them," replied Brandon.

"Why, you are a perfect treasure; teach me at once. How now, Master of the Dance? Here is your friend outdoing you in your own line."

"I am glad to hear it," I returned.

"If Lady Jane will kindly play some lively air, written in the time of 'The Sailor Lass,' I will teach the Lady Mary the new dance," said Brandon.

Jane threw one plump little knee over the other and struck up "The Sailor Lass." After she had adjusted the playing to Brandon's suggestion, he stepped deliberately in front of Mary, and, taking her right hand in his left, encircled her waist with his right arm. The girl was startled at first and drew away. This nettled Brandon a little, and he showed it plainly.

"I thought you wished me to teach you the new dance?" he said.

"I do, but--but I did not know it was danced that way," she replied with a fluttering little laugh, looking up into his face with a half shy, half apologetic manner, and then dropping her lashes before his gaze.

"Oh, well!" said Brandon, with a Frenchman's shrug of the shoulders, and then moved off as if about to leave the floor.

"But is that really the way you--they dance it? With your--their arm around my--a lady's waist?"

"I should not have dared venture upon such a familiarity otherwise," answered Brandon, with a glimmer of a smile playing around his lips and hiding in his eyes.

Mary saw this shadowy smile, and said: "Oh! I fear your modesty will cause you hurt; I am beginning to believe you would dare do anything you wish. I more than half suspect you are a very bold man, notwithstanding your smooth, modest manner."

"You do me foul wrong, I assure you. I am the soul of modesty, and grieve that you should think me bold," said Brandon, with a broadening smile.

Mary interrupted him. "Now, I do believe you are laughing at me--at my prudery, I suppose you think it."

Mary would rather have been called a fool than a prude, and I think she was right. Prudery is no more a sign of virtue than a wig is of hair. It is usually put on to hide a bald place.

The princess stood irresolute for a moment, in evident hesitation and annoyance.

"You are grieving because I think you bold! And yet you stand there laughing at me to my face. I think so more than ever now. I know it. Oh, you make me angry! Don't! I do not like persons who anger me and then laugh at me." This turned Brandon's smile into a laugh which he could not hold back.

Mary's eyes shot fire, and she stamped her foot, exclaiming: "Sir, this goes beyond all bounds; I will not tolerate your boldness another moment." I thought she was going to dismiss him, but she did not. The time had come when he or she must be the master.

It was a battle royal between the forces on the floor, and I enjoyed it and felt that Brandon would come out all right.

He said good-humoredly: "What, shall you have all the laugh in your sleeve at my expense? Do you expect to bring me here to win a wager for you, made on the assumption of my stupidity and lack of social accomplishments, and then complain when it comes my turn to laugh? I think I am the one who should be offended, but you see I am not."

"Caskoden, did you tell him?" demanded Mary, evidently referring to the wager.

"He said not a word of it," broke in Brandon, answering for me; "I should have been a dullard, indeed, not to have seen it myself after what you said about the loss of your ten crowns; so let us cry quits and begin again."

Mary reluctantly struck her flag.

"Very well, I am willing," she said laughingly; "but as to your boldness, I still insist upon that; I forgive you, however, this time." Then, half apologetically, "After all, it is not such a grievous charge to make. I believe it never yet injured any man with women; they rather like it, I am afraid, however angry it makes them. Don't they, Jane?"

Jane, of course, "did not know," so we all laughed, as usual, upon the slightest pretext, and Mary, that fair bundle of contradictions and quick transitions, stepped boldly up to Brandon, with her colors flying in her cheeks, ready for the first lesson in the new dance.

She was a little frightened at his arm around her waist, for the embrace was new to her--the first touch of man--and was shy and coy, though willing, being determined to learn the dance. She was an apt pupil and soon glided softly and gracefully around the room with unfeigned delight; yielding to the new situation more easily as she became accustomed to it.

This dance was livelier exercise than La Galliard, and Mary could not talk much for lack of breath. Brandon kept the conversation going, though, and she answered with glances, smiles, nods and monosyllables--a very good vocabulary in its way, and a very good way, too, for that matter.

Once he said something to her, in a low voice, which brought a flush to her cheeks, and caused her to glance quickly up into his face. By the time her answer came they were nearer us, and I heard her say: "I am afraid I shall have to forgive you again if you are not careful. Let me see an exhibition of that modesty you so much boast," But a smile and a flash of the eyes went with the words, and took all the sting out of them.

After a time the dancers stopped, and Mary, with flushed face and sparkling eyes, sank into a chair, exclaiming: "The new dance is delightful, Jane. It is like flying; your partner helps you so. But what would the king say? And the queen? She would simply swoon with horror. It is delightful, though." Then, with more confusion in her manner than I had ever before seen: "That is, it is delightful if one chooses her partner."

This only made matters worse, and gave Brandon an opportunity.

"Dare I hope?" he asked, with a deferential bow.

"Oh, yes; you may hope. I tell you frankly it was delightful with you. Now, are you satisfied, my modest one? Jane, I see we have a forward body here; no telling what he will be at next," said Mary, with evident impatience, rapidly swaying her fan. She spoke almost sharply, for Brandon's attitude was more that of an equal than she was accustomed to, and her royal dignity, which was the artificial part of her, rebelled against it now and then in spite of her real inclinations. The habit of receiving only adulation, and living on a pinnacle above everybody else, was so strong from continued practice, that it appealed to her as a duty to maintain that elevation. She had never before been called upon to exert herself in that direction, and the situation was new. The servile ones with whom she usually associated maintained it for her; so she now felt, whenever she thought of it, that she was in duty bound to clamber back, at least part of the way, to her dignity, however pleasant it was, personally, down below in the denser atmosphere of informality.

In her heart the princess preferred, upon proper occasions, such as this, to abate her dignity, and often requested others to dispense with ceremony, as, in fact, she had done with us earlier in the evening. But Brandon's easy manner, although perfectly respectful and elegantly polite, was very different from anything she had ever known. She enjoyed it, but every now and then the sense of her importance and dignity--for you must remember she was the first princess of the blood royal--would supersede even her love of enjoyment, and the girl went down and the princess came up. Besides, she half feared that Brandon was amusing himself at her expense, and that, in fact, this was a new sort of masculine worm. Really, she sometimes doubted if it were a worm at all, and did not know what to expect, nor what she ought to do.

She was far more girl than princess, and would have preferred to remain merely girl and let events take the course they were going, for she liked it. But there was the other part of her which was princess, and which kept saying: "Remember who you are," so she was plainly at a loss between natural and artificial inclinations contending unconsciously within her.

Replying to Mary's remark over Jane's shoulder, Brandon said:

"Your highness asked us to lay aside ceremony for the evening, and if I have offended I can but make for my excuse my desire to please you. Be sure I shall offend no more." This was said so seriously that his meaning could not be misunderstood. He did not care whether he pleased so capricious a person or not.

Mary made no reply, and it looked as if Brandon had the worst of it.

We sat a few minutes talking, Mary wearing an air of dignity. Cards were proposed, and as the game progressed she gradually unbent again and became as affable and familiar as earlier in the evening. Brandon, however, was frozen. He was polite, dignified and deferential to the ladies, but the spirit of the evening was gone, since he had furnished it all with his free, off-hand manner, full of life and brightness.

After a short time, Mary's warming mood failing to thaw our frozen fun-maker, and in her heart infinitely preferring pleasure to dignity, she said: "Oh, this is wearisome. Your game is far less entertaining than your new dance. Do something to make me laugh, Master Brandon."

"I fear you must call in Will Sommers," he replied, "if you wish to laugh. I can not please you in both ways, so will hold to the one which seems to suit the princess."

Mary's eyes flashed and she said ironically:

"That sounds very much as though you cared to please me in any way." Her lips parted and she evidently had something unkind ready to say; but she held the breath she had taken to speak it with, and, after one or two false starts in as many different lines, continued: "But perhaps I deserve it, I ask you to forgive me, and hereafter desire you three, upon all proper occasions, when we are by ourselves, to treat me as one of you--as a woman--a girl, I mean. Where is the virtue of royalty if it only means being put upon a pinnacle above all the real pleasures of life, like foolish old Stylites on his column? The queen is always preaching to me about the strict maintenance of my 'dignity royal,' as she calls it, and perhaps she is right; but out upon 'dignity royal' say I; it is a terrible nuisance. Oh, you don't know how difficult it is to be a princess and not a fool. There!" And she sighed in apparent relief.

Then turning to Brandon: "You have taught me another good lesson, sir, and from this hour you are my friend, if you will be, so long as you are worthy--no, I do not mean that; I know you will always be worthy--but forever. Now we are at rights again. Let us try to remain so--that is, I will," and she laughingly gave him her hand, which he, rising to his feet, bowed low over and kissed, rather fervently and lingeringly, I thought.

Hand-kissing was new to us in England, excepting in case of the king and queen at public homage. It was a little startling to Mary, though she permitted him to hold her hand much longer than there was any sort of need--a fact she recognized, as I could easily see from her tell-tale cheeks, which were rosy with the thought of it.

So it is when a woman goes on the defensive prematurely and without cause; it makes it harder to apply the check when the real need comes.

After a little card-playing, I expressed regret to Jane that I could not have a dance with her for lack of music.

"I will play, if the ladies permit," said Brandon; and he took Lady Jane's lute and played and sang some very pretty little love songs and some comic ones, too, in a style not often heard in England, so far away from the home of the troubadour and lute. He was full of surprises, this splendid fellow, with his accomplishments and graces.

When we had danced as long as we wished--that is, as Jane wished--as for myself, I would have been dancing yet--Mary again asked us to be seated. Jane having rested, Brandon offered to teach her the new dance, saying he could whistle an air well enough to give her the step. I at once grew uneasy with jealous suspense, for I did _not_ wish Brandon to dance in that fashion with Jane, but to my great relief she replied:

"No; thank you; not to-night." Then shyly glancing toward me: "Perhaps Sir Edwin will teach me when he learns. It is his business, you know."

Would I? If a month, night and day, would conquer it, the new dance was as good as done for already. That was the first real mark of favor I ever had from Jane.

We now had some songs from Mary and Jane; then I gave one, and Brandon sang again at Mary's request. We had duets and quartets and solos, and the songs were all sweet, for they came from the heart of youth, and went to the soul of youth, rich in its God-given fresh delight in everything. Then we talked, and Mary, and Jane, too, with a sly, shy, soft little word now and then, drew Brandon out to tell of his travels and adventures. He was a pleasing talker, and had a smooth, easy flow of words, speaking always in a low, clear voice, and with perfect composure. He had a way of looking first one auditor and then another straight in the eyes with a magnetic effect that gave to everything he said an added interest. Although at that time less than twenty-five years old, he was really a learned man, having studied at Barcelona, Salamanca and Paris. While there had been no system in his education, his mind was a sort of knowledge junk-shop, wherein he could find almost anything he wanted. He spoke German, French and Spanish, and seemed to know the literature of all these languages.

He told us he had left home at the early age of sixteen as his uncle's esquire, and had fought in France, then down in Holland with the Dutch; had been captured by the Spanish and had joined the Spanish army, as it mattered not where he fought, so that there was a chance for honorable achievement and a fair ransom now and then. He told us how he had gone to Barcelona and Salamanca, where he had studied, and thence to Granada, among the Moors; of his fighting against the pirates of Barbary, his capture by them, his slavery and adventurous escape; and his regret that now drowsy peace kept him mewed up in a palace.

"It is true," he said, "there is a prospect of trouble with Scotland, but I would rather fight a pack of howling, starving wolves than the Scotch; they fight like very devils, which, of course, is well; but you have nothing after you have beaten them, not even a good whole wolf skin."

In an unfortunate moment Mary said: "Oh, Master Brandon, tell us of your duel with Judson."

Thoughtful, considerate Jane frowned at the princess in surprise, and put her finger on her lips.

"Your ladyship, I fear I can not," he answered, and left his seat, going over to the window, where he stood, with his back toward us, looking out into the darkness. Mary saw what she had done, and her eyes grew moist, for, with all her faults, she had a warm, tender heart and a quick, responsive sympathy. After a few seconds of painful silence, she went softly over to the window where Brandon stood.

"Sir, forgive me," she said, putting her hand prettily upon his arm. "I should have known. Believe me, I would not have hurt you intentionally."

"Ah! my lady, the word was thoughtlessly spoken, and needs no forgiveness; but your heart shows itself in the asking, and I thank you: I wanted but a moment to throw off the thought of that terrible day." Then they came back together, and the princess, who had tact enough when she cared to use it, soon put matters right again.