He loved to watch the colour come and go in her face, the dainty, girlish movements, simple and unaffected, that little curl which looked like living gold beside the small, shell-like ear. His passionate love for the beautiful was more than satiated at the exquisite picture before him, and then she had such a musical and tender voice; he had heard her singing just now. "But you seem to know me, fair one," he said after a while. "Who does not know His Grace of Wessex?" she responded, making a pretty curtsy. "Then let me be even with you, sweet singer, and tell me your name." Ursula darted a sudden shy look at him. Obviously he was conveying the truth; he did not know who she was. A quick thought crossed her mind; she looked demurely down her nose and said placidly,-- "My name is Fanny." "Fanny?" "Yes . . . you do not like it?" "I didn't before," he said with a smile, "but now I adore it." "I am getting to like it better too," she added thoughtfully. "But, sweet Fanny, tell me how is it I never have seen you before." "Your Grace does not know all the ladies of the Court." "No! but I thought I knew all the pretty ones. Yet meseems that beauty was but an empty word now that I have seen its queen." "Ah, my lord! I fear me your reputation doth not wrong you after all!" she added with a quaint little sigh. "Why? What is my reputation?" "They call you fickle, and say the Duke of Wessex loves many women a little . . . but constantly, not at all." He came a step closer to her, and tried to meet her eyes. "Then will you let me prove them wrong?" he said with sudden seriousness, which perhaps then he could not himself have accounted for. "I? . . ." she said artlessly, "what must I do for that?" "Anything you like," he replied. "Nay, I have no power; for I fear me nothing short of putting Your Grace under lock and key would cure you of that fickleness." "Then put me under lock and key," he suggested gaily. "In an inaccessible tower?" "Wherever you please." She gave a merry, happy little laugh, for he was standing quite close to her now, his proud head slightly bent so that the quick, whispered words might easily reach her ears; and there was an unmistakable look of ardent admiration in his eyes. A demon of mischief suddenly seized her. She wondered whether he had guessed who she was and tried to nettle him into betraying himself. "And to whom shall I give the key of that tower?" she said demurely. "To the Lady Ursula Glynde?" "No," he replied. "Come inside and throw the key out of the window." "But the Lady Ursula?" she persisted. He made a quick gesture of mock impatience. "What wanton cruelty to mention that name now," he said, "when mine ears are tuned to 'Fanny.'" "Tis wrong they should be so tuned--Lady Ursula, they say, is your promised wife." "But I do not love her . . . never could love her whilst----" "They say she is not ill-favoured."