“You are ungallant to remind me, my lord,” said she. “My sex, you may have heard, is privileged to change of mind.” “Then, madame, I pray that you may change it yet again.” His tone was bitter. “Your prayer will not be heard. This time I am resolved.” De Quadra bowed. “The King, my master, will not be pleased, I fear.” She looked him straightly in the face, her dark eyes kindling. “God’s death!” said she, “I marry to please myself, and not the King your master.” “You are resolved on marriage then?” flashed he. “And it please you,” she mocked him archly, her mood of joyousness already conquering her momentary indignation. “What pleases you must please me also, madame,” he answered, in a tone so cold that it belied his words. “That it please you, is reason enough why you should marry... Whom did your Majesty say?” “Nay. I named no names. Yet one so astute might hazard a shrewd guess.” Half-challenging, half-coy, she eyed him over her fan. “A guess? Nay, madame. I might affront your Majesty.” “How so?” “If I were deluded by appearances. If I named a subject who signally enjoys your royal favour.” “You mean Lord Robert Dudley.” She paled a little, and her bosom’s heave was quickened. “Why should the guess affront me?” “Because a queen—a wise queen, madame—does not mate with a subject—particularly with one who has a wife already.” He had stung her. He had wounded at once the pride of the woman and the dignity of the queen, yet in a way that made it difficult for her to take direct offense. She bit her lip and mastered her surge of anger. Then she laughed, a thought sneeringly. “Why, as to my Lord Robert’s wife, it seems you are less well-informed than usual, sir. Lady Robert Dudley is dead, or very nearly so.” And as blank amazement overspread his face, she passed upon her way and left him. But anon, considering, she grew vaguely uneasy, and that very night expressed her afflicting doubt to my lord, reporting to him de Quadra’s words. His lordship, who was mentally near-sighted, laughed. “He’ll change his tone before long,” said he. She set her hands upon his shoulders, and looked up adoringly into his handsome gipsy face. Never had he known her so fond as in these last days since her surrender to him that night upon the terrace at Whitehall, never had she been more the woman and less the queen in her bearing towards him. “You are sure, Robin? You are quite sure?” she pleaded. He drew her close, she yielding herself to his embrace. “With so much at stake could I be less than sure, sweet?” said he, and so convinced her—the more easily since he afforded her the conviction she desired.