Perhaps Lady Castlemaine knew that her empire was secure; but she took these transient fancies _moult serieusement_. Her jealous soul could tolerate no rival—or it may be that she really loved the King. He had given himself to her in the flush of his triumphant return, while he was still young enough to feel a genuine passion. For her sake he had been a cruel husband, an insolent tyrant to an inoffensive wife; for her sake he had squandered his people’s money, and outraged every moral law; and it may be that she remembered these things, and hated him the more fiercely for them when he was inconstant. She was a woman of extremes, in whose tropical temperament there was no medium between hatred and love. “You will sup with me, Fareham?” she said, as he waited on the threshold of her lodgings, which were in a detached pile of buildings, near the Holbein Gateway, and looking upon an enclosed and somewhat gloomy garden. “Your ladyship will excuse me. I am expected at home.” “What devil! Perhaps you think I am inviting you to a _tête-à-tête_. I shall have some company, though the drove have gone to the Stewarts’ in a hope of getting asked to supper—which but a few of them can realise in her mean lodgings. You had better stay. I may have Buckhurst, Sedley, De Malfort, and a few more of the pretty fellows—enough to empty your pockets at basset.” “Your ladyship is all goodness,” said Fareham, quickly. De Malfort’s name had decided him. He followed his hostess through a crowd of lackeys, a splendour of wax candles, to her saloon, where she turned and flashed upon him a glorious picture of mature loveliness, her complexion the peach in its ripest bloom, the orange sheen of her velvet mantua shining out against a background of purple damask curtains embroidered with gold. The logs blazed and roared in the wide chimney. Warmth, opulence, hospitality, were all expressed in the brilliantly lighted room, where luxurious fauteuils, after the new French fashion, stood about, ready to receive her ladyship’s guests. These were not long waited for. There was no crowd. Less than twenty men, and about a dozen women, were enough to add an air of living gaiety to the brilliancy of light and colour. De Malfort was the last who entered. He kissed her ladyship’s hand, looked about him, and recognised Fareham with open wonder. “An Israelite in the house of Dagon!” he said, _sotto voce_, as he approached him. “What, Fareham, have you given your neck to the yoke? Do you yield to the charm which has subjugated such lighter natures as Villiers and Buckhurst?” “It is only human to love variety. You have discovered the charm of youth and innocence.”