Chastelâr was flushed and preoccupied; thus much was apparent to the eyes that watched him with such eager interest. Ever and anon he glanced uneasily towards the royal table, but ere long something he noticed there seemed to give him intense satisfaction, and filling his goblet to the brim, he devoted himself, like an accomplished gallant, to his fair neighbour. Such is the nature of his sex. A woman always feels a little humbled when she thinks she has been too gracious, even towards a favourite; a man, on the contrary, though his affections may be fixed elsewhere, considers it due to himself to be as captivating as he can. And then they talk of female vanity and female love of admiration. ‘I was sorry for my young knight to-day,’ said Mary Hamilton, not, it must be confessed, very truthfully, and without raising her eyes to her companion’s face. ‘Poor boy! he would have been so pleased to win. I wish he had carried off the prize.’ Chastelâr could not forbear giving her a meaning look. ‘And yet you did not choose him,’ he said. ‘He was given you by the Queen. Did he really carry your good wishes with him, Mistress Hamilton? I marvel his lance could fail; if I had thought that, mine would hardly have been so steady.’ He scarce knew what he was saying. Flushed with success; intoxicated with his own wild happiness; excited as such imaginative natures are by music, lights, wine, and beauty, he was in that reckless mood which drains pleasure eagerly from every cup, and thinks not of to-morrow. ‘You are jesting with me,’ she answered, in a low, trembling voice. Oh! had he known how these light words of his thrilled to that kind unsuspecting heart, he would have spared her for very pity’s sake. ‘Nay, fair mistress,’ he replied, gaily, ‘I do not jest with _you_; there are some with whom to break jests is like breaking lances, sharp-pointed ones, too, and ending in a combat _à l’outrance_. I am afraid of you, Mistress Hamilton.’ ‘Why so?’ she asked, looking up at him with her clear, guileless eyes. ‘Am I so very formidable? You do not seem much afraid of anything to-night.’ A gleam of triumph shot from his eyes, and once more he glanced towards the upper end of the hall, then lowering his voice, he whispered-- ‘There are contests in which to win is as perilous as to lose. There are lists in which the true knight fights unarmed whilst his adversary is clothed in steel. Give me my _coup-de-grâce_, Mistress Hamilton,’ he added, with a bright smile, ‘I must depart now to prepare for the masque. Before I go I yield me “rescue or no rescue.”’ ‘You have a merciful jailer,’ was all she could trust herself to reply; but as he rose from his seat and left the hall, Mary Hamilton’s eyes followed him with a wistful, longing gaze, and Mary Hamilton’s heart thrilled in her bosom, with a keen sense of pleasure that was not far removed from pain.