When the major-domo, Quijada, obedient to her command, entered the room at eleven o’clock, she called to him: “Miracles, Luis, mighty miracles in these godless times! I have just come from his Majesty, and in what did I find him occupied? Turning over music with Maestro Gombert--of course, for a female voice. Besides, he looked as if he had just defeated the Turks and Frenchmen at once. As for the gout, he’ll be dancing the ‘hoppedei’ with the peasants presently.” “Day before yesterday he surprised us by wearing satin shoes,” remarked Quijada. “May I congratulate you on the really magical effect of your Majesty’s prescription?” “Continue to think so, if it suits you,” cried the Queen gaily. “Only a few powerful drops from elsewhere have probably fallen into the potion. But how stupidly artless you can look when you feign ignorance, Luis! In this case, however, you need not let your breathing be oppressed by the mask. I bow to your masculine secrecy--but why did my worldly-wise brother mingle a petticoat in this delicate business if he wishes to keep it hidden?” “The Marquise Leria!” cried the major-domo, shrugging his shoulders angrily, as if against an inevitable misfortune. “My senior lady in waiting,” said the regent in assent to this conjecture. “Make haste to bestow a stately candle, because it is she, and no one else. You might spare yourself that smile; I know her better than you do. If she had as many teeth as she possesses vices, she might be happy; yet one admirable quality mingles with the evil traits in her character.” “And that?” asked Quijada, as if he deemed a satisfactory answer impossible. “Secrecy,” replied the Queen firmly. “She keeps what she has overheard to herself as closely as a miser guards his gold.” “In order to turn it to account when the favourable moment comes,” remarked the major-domo. “Your Majesty will also permit me to observe that if the marquise has already betrayed what was intended to remain secret----” “Her boasted reticence can not be very great, you think,” interrupted the Queen. “But justice for all, my handsome lord. At present she is in any service, and no other. Whose bread I eat, his song I sing--which in this case means: His secret I keep, and to him I carry whatever I discover. Besides, this time even the person betrayed owes her a debt of gratitude, for you know how difficult it is for him to use his limbs, and she is most obligingly smoothing the path for him. I tell you, Luis, with all due respect for his Majesty as a general and a statesman, in a skirmish of intrigue this woman will outwit you all. The schemes her aged brain invents have neither fault nor flaw. The wheels work upon one another as they do in the Emperor’s best Nuremberg clock. I want to watch their turning before I go, for, be it known to you, early tomorrow morning--the saints be praised!--I start for Brussels.”