"That you have breakfasted," interrupted the queen with another faint smile. "Nay, I take it my absence will be more esteemed. Oh! no protests, gentlemen," she went on, lifting her hand as the polite chorus was repeated, "for I perceive, as to be sure I only anticipated, that you are all booted and spurred for your day's pleasure. And I had no intention of coming here to--to spoil it. But on my way from chapel this young gentleman--" and she made a motion towards Lawrence Lee--"a supplicant for a word with your majesty,--crossed it. And though some of your majesty's people would have denied him, his business--" "Business!" groaned the king, sinking down again into his chair with a cavernous yawn. "Was urgent, he said." "We have no leisure for it;" and Charles's black brows knitted with angry impatience. "Let him carry it to Whitehall." "He says," persisted Catharine, "that it concerns your majesty personally." "Then its standing over can give the less offence. If we alone are concerned--" [Sidenote: Lawrence speaks out.] "We!" cried Lee, breaking to the front and sending all ceremony to the winds, and his bashfulness after it. "We! 'Tis there all the whole matter lies. 'Tis just because your majesty is 'We,' and never can be 'I.' The King is England, and England is the King!" Charles's brow relaxed into an expression of amused curiosity at the earnestness of the speaker. "Your sentiments are loyal at all events," he said, as his dark eyes considered the young man's appearance from beneath their heavy lids. "Are we to feel assured that your heart is no traitor to them?" Lee blushed. "'Tis my heart," he replied, "that bids me entreat your majesty to hear me." "And a sweet heart I think it must be, by my faith, and your red cheeks," merrily laughed the king. "And a brave honest meaning one, I will not doubt. But we have seen too many shadows and mumbo-jumbos in our life, to be afraid of them. And," continued the king, glancing round at the company, all ready equipped for their expedition, "we are detaining these gentlemen, and the ladies too, from their pleasure." "They could be spared," hopefully said Lee, who desired nothing better than to speak alone with the king. [Sidenote: Suspicion.] "But it is suspicious indeed--this!" cried a beautiful Frenchified-looking lady, coming close up beside Charles, and darting angry glances on the young farmer from her brilliant eyes. "His majesty loves not so well tête-à-têtes with persons of your condition," she added in haughty tones. "He might hold them with less honest folks, madam," returned the queen still more haughtily. "And he asks not your leave, I doubt, to speak with his own English-born subjects." "Come, come!" said the king, as the lady at his side poutingly drew a step back; "this grows troublesome. What is the bottom of your business with us, my good friend?" "Treason!" curtly answered Lawrence.