"Now, pray, tell us something about the queen," kept on Mrs. Van Tromp. "We all take such an interest in everything relating to her--such a model woman in every respect." "Is she?" dryly remarked Marian. "I know she hath a heavy hand. See you this ear of mine? Well, one day, as I was in her closet, handing her her petticoat, I happened to glance sidewise out of the window at my Lord Essex in the court-yard, and the queen fetched me such a box on the ear, it stings me yet, and called me a lazy vixen, with eyes for none but cavaliers, and if I did not behave myself better she would pack me off home. And being vexed and sore, I did complain to my Lord Bishop of London, who told me he could do nothing to help me, for the queen had sworn at him like any trooper as he stood in his bishop's robes, and had kicked and cuffed him most cruelly." Mrs. Van Tromp's countenance was a study during all this. She finally murmured faintly: "I'd no idea the queen was that sort of a person." "And," continued Lady Marian, animated by the recital of her wrongs at the queen's hands, "she doth wear apparel too young for her years, and paints her face, albeit she be near seventy. And dances--" "Dances!" said Mrs. Van Tromp, almost breathless with surprise. "Yes," promptly answered Lady Marian, getting up with alacrity, "not a stately measure like this--" And here, she walked with matchless grace, a few steps of a courtly dance. "But a hoydenish thing like this--" Throwing her train over her arm, Lady Marian executed a _pas de seul_ that would have done credit to any ballet girl in the world. Her heels flew up and her toes flew out, her skirts whirled wildly about, and she was a perfect picture of grace and _abandon_. To a man of Macfarren's nature, who had a tender respect for all women, this exhibition, however graceful, could not but be painful. But when the woman in the case was the one dearest to him in the whole world, the pain became agony. But far was it from Mrs. Van Tromp to be shocked at any performance of Lady Marian de Winstanley, bed-chamber woman to the queen. "Is that the queen's favorite dance?" she cried. "Then, dear Lady Marian, may I ask you to teach me a few steps of it." And the first thing Macfarren saw, Mrs. Van Tromp's train was over her arm and she was capering about as furiously as Lady Marian. Now, although Macfarren was suffering the tortures of the damned, in addition to which he momentarily expected the angry interference of the proprietor, and to have the misery of seeing Lady Marian thrust disgracefully out of the hotel, the spectacle of Mrs. Van Tromp as an elderly Bacchante was too much for him. He lay back in his chair and laughed until he thought he should have died. A cow trying to walk a tight rope would have been graceful compared to Mrs. Van Tromp's elephantine attempts--but when with a final hop, skip and a jump, she asked him what he thought of it, he lied desperately.