"The Queen refuses to receive you, I am sorry to inform you, gentlemen," said the Duke. "That I did my best this lady will bear me witness. But having had no opportunity of private conference with her Majesty, I was unable (as indeed I anticipated) to effect anything." Rollo turned to Concha without wasting words on his former ambassador. "Return to the Queen's chamber," he said, "and inform her Majesty that we will wait her pleasure here for other ten minutes. And if by the end of that time we are not honoured with a visit from her Majesty, we shall (most reluctantly and with all respect) be compelled to shoot Senor Fernando Munoz, whose person we hold as a hostage for her Majesty's complaisance in the affair we have undertaken. We can waste no more time." Concha's lips became more rigid than ever. They looked as if they never would, should, or could be kissed. Juno herself, passing sentence upon the object of great Jove's latest admiration, could not have appeared more inflexibly stern. But she only saluted, turned on her heel like a drill-sergeant, and marched out by the side door. In these trying circumstances the Duke of Rianzares displayed an unexpected and wholly admirable calm. He leaned against the mantelpiece, glanced once at the ormolu timepiece with the address of a Paris maker below the winding-holes, and fell again to fingering his unshaven chin. He then turned quickly toward the trembling valet, who regarded him with eyes which seemed to apologise for such unprecedented circumstances. "There would have been time to shave me even yet," he said, "only that you were fool enough to spill the shaving-water." Then, as if relinquishing hope, he sighed again and fell listlessly to regarding himself in the mirror. He was a handsome man, even with an unshaven chin that showed over a dressing-gown with yellow flowers on a purple ground. Also the pulses of the tobacco-seller's son of the Ardoz _estanco_ must have been urged by a pretty equal-beating heart, to enable him to take matters so calmly. The Sergeant muttered to himself once or twice as if making mental note of an important fact which he desired to remember. "All dandies are not cowards," was what he was saying. CHAPTER XLI ROLLO USES A LITTLE PERSUASION Five, six, seven, eight of the ten slow minutes passed away, and beyond a glance at the clock and a more absorbing interest in the furze on his chin, Senor Munoz had not moved. The seconds hand upon the clock on the mantelshelf was crawling round its miniature dial for the ninth time with vast apparent deliberation, when a noise was heard from the direction of the Queen's apartments. There was a rapid gabble of tongues, a scurry of footsteps, the hissing rustle of stiff silken skirts along narrow passages, and a voice which exclaimed more and more shrilly, "The murderers! The cowards! Surely they will never dare! Have they forgotten that I am a Queen?"