‘Master Maxwell,’ observed Riccio, as he marked the eye of the former brightening and the colour returning to his cheek, ‘the ladies of the Court vow you are a true knight. Like our chevaliers of Italy, sworn before the Peacock to do them service, you are bound to refuse no adventure in their behalf. Is it not so?’ Maxwell winced a little. The subject was no pleasant one, and he was at this moment particularly sore on that point; so he answered in a cold, hard voice-- ‘I have little respect for the mummeries of chivalry, Signior Riccio. A man should do his duty, whatever it be, for its own sake. And as for the ladies,’ he added, with a sad smile, ‘I leave it to younger and happier men to fulfil their wishes; if indeed they are fortunate enough to be able to find them out.’ The secretary laughed gaily. ‘Is it so?’ he said; ‘must all men alike discover that the little finger of a white hand is heavier than the arm of a Douglas sheathed in steel? I thought it was a lesson only learned by the dwarfed, the misshapen, the unsightly, like me. But you, Master Maxwell, the handsome, the straight, and the tall; can it be that a woman listens unmoved to such men as you?’ There was no covert sarcasm, no leavening of ill-nature in his voice--nothing but the good-humoured banter of a laughing boon companion. And yet it may be, that even under his jest, David Riccio was glad to learn that the prizes of life did not fall so readily to those personal advantages which he coveted with the longing of deformity. ‘Enough of this!’ replied Maxwell, interrupting him rudely, and holding out his cup to be filled yet once more. ‘Months of Holyrood have not succeeded in making me a courtier. I love the free open sky better than these tapestried walls. I love the sound of a trumpet better than a woman’s false whisper, and the shaft of a Jedwood-axe better than an ivory fan. I can hearken to a plain tale, and accept a defiance given in my teeth, but I have no skill in reading the thoughts of others by the rule of contrary, and I never could understand our Scottish proverb that averreth how “Nineteen nay-says make half a grant.”’ He was still chafing under his ill-usage, and talking more to himself than his companion. The latter looked at him long and eagerly. Apparently satisfied with his scrutiny, he patted him on the shoulder once more. ‘You are young,’ he said; ‘you have life before you; you are quick-witted, brave, and adventurous. What, man, there are more prizes than one in the lottery! If love be a false jade, ambition is a glorious mistress. Is it not better to sit at the back of the stage and pull the strings than to be one of the puppets and dance because another moves you; perhaps a fool’s dance, with a fool’s guerdon, for your pains at the end?’ Maxwell shook him off impatiently. ‘You speak in riddles,’ said he, ‘and I have no skill in expounding such parables. If you have aught to say, out with it, like a man. Midnight is already past.’