He talked with that gentleman for half an hour before seeking his own repose. He saw the importance of any matter that might entangle the Duchess, and indeed Miss Polly’s matters were almost become an affair of state into such high company were they got. The poor girl would never have believed her own consequences had she been told it. As to Madam Diana—no one troubled over her at all. Dianas were not believed to haunt the playhouse in Portugal Street. ’Tis probable no one credited her existence but herself and one other. Let us charitably add the Duchess. CHAPTER XIV IT was in the great white and gold withdrawing room of Queensbury House that her Grace discoursed that Sunday night to her friends and partisans on the insult received from the King. “Lord!” says Lady Fanny, using her fan with as much energy as had it been a flail descending on his Majesty’s back.— “Was ever such treatment known to one of her Grace’s rank! These little Electoral Princes imagine they are to come over from their bear-garden in Hanover and insult the most ancient families of England. The Stuarts, who were at least gentlemen, whatever their shortcomings, had never attempted such insolence.” Indeed many of the company were at heart partisans of the exiled Royal family, and this was received with sympathy. “And if rank was not sufficient one might suppose her Grace’s beauty would secure her from such boorish rudeness,”—replies the aged Sir Temperley Harington. “But his Majesty’s taste in women is merely lamentable. Ah, ladies, ladies—I am old enough to remember such beauties as can only be matcht in this room. I remember the exquisite Mrs. Stuart, later Duchess of Richmond, in black and white, her head and shoulders glittering like a January night with diamonds, and did I not see his Majesty King Charles the Second of blessed memory unable to take his eyes off that enchanting vision? I was but twelve years old, but she fixed my standard for all time. ’Twas at a ball at Whitehall. Had that sweet lady committed high treason he would have rather crowned her head than severed it from her charming neck.” Lord Carteret sauntered up in his white satin coat brocaded with gold, the plaits sticking out from his waist nearly as stiff as the farthingale of Queen Elizabeth. “The beautiful Mrs. Stuart did commit a sort of high treason in refusing the King’s advances,”—says he laughing, “and were I the King it should be at least petty treason. Yet he did but kiss the fair hand that struck the blow. Was Lady Castlemaine as fine a woman as our grandfathers tell us, Sir Temperley?”