He hastily recovered himself, and, not to appear embarrassed, assumed as brave an air as if he were on the point of taking a fortress by storm. With long strides and a stiff carriage, he walked up to the queen and bowed. Duke Waldemar turned to one side, and only half concealed his laughter. But the familiar manner in which the queen conversed with Count Gerhard soon restored his self-possession, and brought back his even, good-tempered simplicity of character. He spoke of his mischance at the tournament at Helsingborg, when he ventured to contend for the queen's colours, without being able to honour them with victory; and the humorous manner in which he complained of himself in the affair, and jested at his own awkwardness, greatly amused the queen. "You may well jest at the vile mischance," she observed, with undisguised goodwill and respect: "your knightly honour you have established on more important and more serious occasions. You look well, I perceive," she added, remarking his round figure, and the difficult movements of his arm: "the world does not consume you, sir count." "I ought, certainly, as a young widower, to look lean and dismal," replied Count Gerhard, colouring; "but you must kindly excuse me, your grace. The happiness whose loss cannot be seen in me, I have not been so fortunate as to possess rightly. It is, certainly, one of my greatest mishaps in life; but I have the singular fate to thrive by mishaps. This I have just recently experienced. But appearances are deceitful, your grace; and I hope, in about eight days, to be much thinner, if your grace commands." "How?" inquired the queen, laughing: "can you become thin at pleasure? I am glad that, in such a case, you can preserve your cheerfulness." Without, however, entering farther into the frank Count Gerhard's heart affairs, and the inappropriate theme of his personal appearance, the queen suddenly broke off the conversation by a few indifferent questions, to which he replied somewhat in confusion, fearing that he had said something improper. Knight Abildgaard and the Lady Cecilia had already, for some time, stepped out of the dance, and were standing in the recess of a window, in pleasing conversation. The flutes and violins now struck up a quick, lively air, and the young maidens sang the queen's favourite ballad, about King Didrik and the Lion's fight with the Dragon. "I like this ballad very well," said the queen, "Every age has its dragons, I fancy; but, against the paction of king and lion, there is small chance for the dragon." "That is a true saying, noble queen," replied the count, with much interest, in reference to the allusion. "There are still lions by the side of the Danish throne; but, in these chivalrous times, they would rather serve the queen than the king, I trow." "If you please, we will tread a dance to the song," added the queen, interrupting him.