"Ah, but," said Margot, touching him gently on the cheek with the lash of her riding-whip, "I mind well how you swore you would wed the Queen of England, provided she brought you that rich land--aye, though she had as many wrinkles on her brow as the sea that surrounds her isle, or even the Infanta of Spain, old and wizened as a last year's pippin, if only she brought you in dower the Low Countries!" "Ah, Margot," said Henry, smiling up at his wife, "and I thought it was your sole boast that you never cast up old stories! You always found new ones--or made them!" "I did but tease," she said; "but indeed, for all my mother is so ill, this is no time for jesting. I have come to see that you get fair play among them all, my little friend Henry. Though you love me not greatly, and I did sometimes throw the table-equipage at your head, yet Margot of France and Navarre is not the woman to see her husband wronged--least of all by her own mother and that good, excellent, mignon-loving brother of mine, the King-titular of some small remnant of France." CHAPTER XVII. MATE AND CHECKMATE At this moment, the litter of Catherine de Medici was seen approaching. D'Epernon had hastened to tell her of the unexpected arrival of her daughter, the Queen of Navarre. "No, it cannot be--she is safe at Usson, entertaining all the Jackass-erie of Auvergne!" cried the Queen-Mother, hastily wrapping herself in a bundle of dark cloaks, with the ermine sleeves and sable collars, which the thinness of her blood caused her to wear even in the heat of the dog-days. Scoffers declared she was getting ready for the hereafter by accustoming herself gradually to the climate. But those who knew better were aware that the vital heat was at long and last slowly oozing from that once tireless body, though the brain above remained clear and subtle to the end. D'Epernon helped the Queen-Mother into the litter of ebony and gold in which she journeyed. She called for her maids-of-honour, but was informed that they were all busied with welcoming the new arrivals. Then the face of Catherine took on a hard and bitter expression. "This is not the first, nor the second time that Margot has outwitted me"--she almost hissed the words, yet not so low but D'Epernon caught them. "Has ever a woman who has given all, done all for her family, been cursed with sons who will do nothing even to save themselves, and a daughter whose pleasure it is to thwart the mother who bore her? But--patience, all is not yet lost! Wait a while. Little Margot of the Large Heart may not be so clever as she thinks!" Yet so artful was the dissimulation of both women, that when at last they approached each other, Margot, the Queen of Navarre, threw herself into her mother's arms, and hid her face (possibly, also, her emotion) on her shoulder, while Catherine wept real, visible, globular tears over her one daughter, whom she embraced after so many years.