“Do you think it needs a modish Columbus to discover that? We all worship innocence, were it but for its rarity, as we esteem a black pearl or a yellow diamond above a white one. Jarni, but I am pleased to see you here! It is the most human thing I have known of you since you recovered of the contagion; for you have been a gloomier man from that time.” “Be assured I am altogether human—at least upon the worser side of humanity.” “How dismal you look! Upon my soul, Fareham, you should fight against that melancholic habit. Her ladyship is in the black sulks. We are in for a pleasant evening. Yet, if we were to go away, she would storm at us to-morrow; call us sycophants and time-servers, swear she would hold no further commerce with any manjack among our detestable crew. Well, she is a magnificent termagant. If Cleopatra was half as handsome, I can forgive Antony for following her to ruin at Actium.” “There is supper in the music-room, gentlemen,” said Lady Castlemaine, who was standing near the fire in the midst of a knot of whispering women. They had been abusing the fair Frances, and ridiculing old Rowley, to gratify their hostess. She knew them by heart—their falsehood and hollowness. She knew that they were ready, every one of them, to steal her royal lover, had they but the chance of such a conquest; yet it solaced her soreness to hear Miss Stewart depreciated even by those false lips—“She was too tall.” “Her Britannia profile looked as if it was cut out of wood.” “She was bold, bad, designing.” “It was she who would have the King, not the King who would have her.” “You are too malicious, my dearest Price,” said Lady Castlemaine, with more good humour than had been seen in her countenance that evening. “Buckhurst, will you take Mrs. Price to supper? There are cards in the gallery. Pray amuse yourselves.” “But will your ladyship neither sup nor play?” asked Sedley. “My ladyship has a raging headache. What devil! Did I not lose enough to some of you blackguards last night? Do you want to rook me again? Pray amuse yourselves, friends. No doubt his Majesty is being exquisitely entertained where he is; but I doubt if he will get as good a supper as you will find in the next room.” The significant laugh which concluded her speech was too angry for mirth, and the blackness of her brow forbade questioning. All the town knew next day that she had contrived to get the royal supper intercepted and carried off, on its way from the King’s kitchen to Miss Stewart’s lodgings, and that his Majesty had a Barmecide feast at the table of beauty. It was a joke quite in the humour of the age.