"You have touched the reason why I asked you to come to The Hague," he said. "I want you to wait on the Princess and obtain from her some assurance that she would never countenance any menace to her father——" "I am sure she would not," answered Basilea at once. "I do hope it, for if she will not support her husband his design is as good as hopeless, since it is her claim, not his own, he must put forward." Basilea smiled. "She is a Stewart, must be a little ambitious, if nothing else, and hers was not a love-match that she should sacrifice everything to her husband." She glanced quickly at M. D’Avaux, and added— "But you still look doubtful——" "Madame," he replied earnestly, "the Princess is a very ardent Protestant——" "She was not at Whitehall." "—She hath," he continued, "lived ten years with the Prince——" "They say in England that he doth not treat her kindly——" "His Majesty hath done his best to put discord between them—when Her Highness discovered that her Chaplain and one of her women, Anne Trelawney, were working on His Majesty’s orders to make mischief betwixt the Prince and herself, she dismissed them. I thought that looked ill for us." Basilea shook her head, still smiling. "An English princess will not be so soon subdued—I’ll undertake to get assurances from Her Highness that she is ignorant of these tales of the designs of the Prince, and that she would never support them if she knew of them." Basilea spoke with some animation; she felt sure of what she said, and was not ill pleased to be of service to her own and her adopted country in this, as she thought it, pleasant fashion. She remembered Mary Stewart as a lively, laughing girl, who had detested and opposed her marriage with much spirit, and she had no fear that she would find that wilful gay Princess difficult to manage. M. D’Avaux was not so confident. "You do not know the Prince," he remarked, and Basilea laughed. "He is not so redoubtable where women are concerned, I think," she answered; "at least allow me to try." "I ask it of you," he said gravely; "for more hangs on this than I dare think." "Sure, you need not fear the Prince," she returned, "if he had the most wicked will in the world—the difficulties in his way are unsurmountable." "France," he replied, "must make them so." On that he took his leave, and left Basilea with more busy thoughts than had been hers for some while since. She returned to the window-seat, propped her chin on her palm, and looked down the street. She was a pretty seeming woman, slender, dusky brown in the hair and eyes, of a just height and proportion, and her person was shown to advantage by the plain French style of her gown and ringlets, which had a graceful simplicity wholly wanting in the stiff fashions prevailing in England and the Low Countries.