Far different was the conversation carried on at the same moment by that courtly pair, the diplomatic Mr Thomas Randolph and the stately Mistress Mary Beton. The former, with his keen political foresight, had lately been reflecting that a close intimacy with at least one of the household, would open a fertile channel for information regarding the Queen’s private thoughts and doings, such as would be invaluable to him in his present capacity as confidential agent to Elizabeth. He had also observed the admiration which his late appearance had obviously elicited from the senior maid-of-honour; and he had no more scruple in deliberately proceeding to make love to that austere damsel than he would have had in putting her to the torture, had the latter process, rather than the former, been the most effectual way of gaining her confidence. Mary Beton was not insensible to admiration. She was a woman, and, with all her magnificence of deportment, consequently inherited the propensities of her sex; but she would not have appreciated indiscriminate homage; and the dish to please her palate, if we may so speak, required to be elaborately dressed and seasoned, and sent up on a silver trencher at least. To have won Mr Randolph’s good opinion, however, was a conquest of which any lady might be proud. The ambassador’s high position, his invariable assurance and self-reliance, his thorough knowledge of the world, and sarcastic readiness of tongue, had rendered him an object of considerable interest to the dames of the Scottish court. They exaggerated, as women will, his influence, his talents, his successes--diplomatic as well as social--and the favour with which he was regarded by the English Queen. They quoted him, they talked about him--above all, they were a little afraid of him; and the latter sensation possesses an indefinable charm for the venturous tendencies of the female character. Mary Beton was startled to find how gratifying to her self-love were the attentions of the English courtier. It was difficult to say by what subtle process he led her to infer that he took pleasure in her society. Every word he said might have been proclaimed unblushingly by the Lion-King-at-Arms. And yet before Randolph had spoken a dozen sentences to Mary Beton, he had dexterously led her to infer that she was the only woman in that crowded assemblage whom he considered worthy of his notice; that their ideas were sympathetic, their tastes similar, and that a mutual alliance must necessarily be established between them.