“Let me remind your Majesty of a phrase you made use of last night—‘And he, her brother, the Little Satan!’” The corners of Charles’s lips twitched humorously at the recollection; his transient anger evaporated. It was the misfortune of his life that he was always most prone to see the light side of the most serious questions. Enguerrand, with his implike quickness, caught the relaxation of the royal profile, and his own lips quivered with mirth. Upon Rockhurst’s face came an expression of disdain mingled with deep melancholy. “Your Majesty smiles,” said he, “and so does the lad yonder. Ah, your Majesty, look at him! ’Tis a fine lad, even as my own. And you are right! there is some resemblance, a great resemblance, between them; and your Majesty, who saw me start at it last night, deemed I had seen a spectre. I saw this, sire—what a court makes of youth.” Charles’s foot had been tapping restlessly. He moved once or twice uneasily in his chair: his merry Rockhurst had not used him to such wearisome moods. Yet he loved the man. “Nay, nay,” he explained at length; “I’d have you remember, my lord, that it is my cousin of France who is responsible for our Little Satan yonder. Nay, Rockhurst,” he went on, in his easy kindness and his sense of royal prerogative, unable to grasp the fact that any one could be in earnest in refusing the favour of his personal interest; “I’ll have the lad with my own sons. We’d keep our eye upon him, man.” Rockhurst’s glance rested on the King’s countenance now with an unwonted tenderness. “Alas, my beloved liege! …” he said gently. Their gaze commingled; then the amazed displeasure in Charles’s eyes gave place to unwilling amusement, as Rockhurst went on once more in his usual indifferent tone:— “The poor child would at least, your Majesty will admit, find it hard to practise at Court the fourth commandment.… How should he honour his father? And yet ’tis my wish that his days should be long in the land.” “Why, then,” said the King, shortly, “there is no more to be said.” He rose and looked a second keenly at Jeanne. Then, upon one of those generous impulses which none could carry more gracefully into effect than himself:— “You lost your wager to me, my lord, with all the gallantry I expected of so good a cavalier. But, Odd’s fish! I do not carry away altogether a clear conscience on the subject. If you have lost in the letter, it strikes me you have won in the spirit. I will take it, if you please, that we have both won; I will indite forthwith an order on the exchequer for those greedy yeomen of yours who contrive to be always under arrears of pay.… Though, upon my life, Rockhurst, you and your fellows put me in mind of those callow birds we used to watch, in our wandering days: it boots little how big the last mouthful—ever a squawk for more!” Rockhurst folded his lips upon the obvious retort. He took the sheet from the King’s hand with an air of profound obligation:—