The manager stood a moment looking through the half-closed door at Nell. There was a strange mingling of contending forces at work in his nature. To be sure, he had trifled with the affections of the Spanish dancing-girl, a new arrival from Madrid and one of the latest attractions of the King’s House; but it was his pride, when he discovered that Nell’s sharp eyes had found him out, that suffered, not his conscience. Was he not the fascinating actor-manager of the House? Could he prevent the ladies loving him? Must he be accused of not loving Nell, simply because his charms had edified the shapely new-comer? Nell’s rebuke had depressed him, but there was a smouldering fire within. “’Slife!” he muttered. “If I do not steal my way into Nell’s heart, I’ll abandon the rouge-box and till the soil.”As he approached his tiring-room, he bethought him that it would be well first to have an oversight of the theatre. He turned accordingly and pulled open the door that led to the stage.

As he did so, a figure fell into the greenroom, grasping devotedly a violin, lest his fall might injure it. Strings had been biding his time, waiting an opportunity to see Nell, and had fallen asleep behind the door.

“How now, dog!” exclaimed the manager when he saw who the intruder was.

Strings hastened to his feet and hobbled across the room.

“I told you not to set foot here again,” shouted Hart, following him virulently.

Strings bowed meekly. “I thought the King’s House in need of a player; so I came back, sir,” said he.

Hart was instantly beside himself. “Zounds!” he stormed. “I have had enough impudence to contend with to-night. Begone; or up you go for a vagrant.”“I called on Mistress Gwyn, sir,” explained Strings.

“Mistress Gwyn does not receive drunkards,” fiercely retorted Hart; and he started hastily to the stage-door and called loudly for his force of men to put the fiddler out.

Nell’s door was still ajar. She had removed the roses from her hair and dress. She caught at once her name. Indeed, there was little that went on which Nell did not see or hear, even though walls intervened. “Who takes my name in vain?” she called. Her head popped through the opening left by the door, and she scanned the room.

As her eye fell upon the old fiddler, who had often played songs and dances for her in days gone by, a cry of joy came from her lips. She rushed into the greenroom and threw both arms about Strings’s neck. “My old comrade, as I live,” she cried, dancing about him. “I am joyed to see you, Strings!”

Turning, she saw the manager eying them with fiery glances. She knew the situation and the feeling. “Jack, is it not good to have Strings back?” she asked, sweetly.

Hart’s face grew livid with anger. He could see the merry devil dancing in her eye and on her tongue. He knew the hoyden well. “Gad, I will resign management.” He turned on his heel, entered his tiring-room and closed the door, none too gently. He feared to tarry longer, lest he might say too much.

Nell broke into a merry laugh; and the fiddler chuckled.

“You desert me these days, Strings,” she said, as she leaned against the table and fondly eyed the wayfarer of the tattered garments and convivial spirits.

“I don’t love your lackey-in-waiting, Mistress Nell,” said he, with a wink in the direction of the departed manager.

“Poor Jack. Never mind him,” she said, with a roguish laugh, though with no touch of malice in it, for there was devil without malice in Nell’s soul.

As she again sought the eyes of the fiddler, her face grew thoughtful. She spoke–hesitated–and then spoke again, as if the thought gave her pain. “Have you kept your word to me, Strings, and stopped–drinking?” she asked. The last word fell faintly, tremblingly, from her lips–almost inaudibly.

“Mistress Nell, I–I–” Strings’s eyes fell quickly.

Nell’s arm was lovingly about him in an instant. “There, there; don’t tell me, Strings. Try again, and come and see me often.” There was a delicacy in her voice and way more beautiful than the finest acting. The words had hurt her more than him. She changed her manner in an instant.

Not so with Strings. The tears were in his eyes. “Mistress Nell, you are so good to me,” he said; “and I am such a wretch.”

“So you are, Strings,” and she laughed merrily.

“I have taught my little ones at home who it is that keeps the wolf from our door,” he continued.

“Not a word of that!” she exclaimed, reprovingly. “Poor old fellow!” Her eyes grew big and bright as she reflected on the days she had visited the fiddler’s home and on the happiness her gifts had brought his children. For her, giving was better than receiving. The feeling sprang from the fulness of her own joy at seeing those about her happy, and not from the teachings of priests or prelates. Dame Nature was her sole preceptor in this.

“I’ll bring the babes another sugar plum to-morrow. I haven’t a farthing to-night. Moll ran away with the earnings, and there is no one left to rob,” she said.

“Heyday,” and she ran lightly to the vase and caught up the flowers. “Take the flowers to the bright eyes, to make them brighter.” They would at least add cheerfulness to the room where Strings lived until she could bring something better.

As she looked at the roses, she began to realize how dear they were becoming to herself, for they were the King’s gift; and her heart beat quickly and she touched the great red petals lovingly with her lips.Strings took the flowers awkwardly; and, as he did so, something fell upon the floor. He knelt and picked it up, in his eagerness letting the roses fall.

“A ring among the flowers, Mistress Nell,” he cried.

“A ring!” she exclaimed, taking the jewel quickly. Her lips pressed the setting. “Bless his heart! A ring from his finger,” she continued half aloud. “Is it not handsome, Strings?” Her eyes sparkled brightly and there was a triumphant smile upon her lips.

The fiddler’s face, however, was grave; his eyes were on the floor.

“How many have rings like that, while others starve,” he mused, seriously.

Nell held the jewel at arm’s length and watched its varying brightness in the candle-light. “We can moralize, now we have the ring,” she said, by way of rejoinder, then broke into a ringing laugh at her own way-of-the-world philosophizing. “Bless the giver!” she added, in a mood of rhapsody.

She turned, only again to observe the sad countenance of Strings. “Alack-a-day! Why do you not take the nosegay?” she asked, wonderingly; for she herself was so very happy that she could not see why Strings too should not be so.

“It will not feed my little ones, Mistress Nell,” he answered, sadly.

Nell’s heart was touched in an instant. “Too true!” she said, sympathetically, falling on her knee and lovingly gathering up the roses. “Flowers and Music feed naught but Love, and often then Love goes hungry–very hungry.” Her voice was so sweet and tender that it seemed as though the old viol had caught the notes.

“Last night, Mistress Nell,” said Strings, “the old fiddle played its sweetest melody for them, but they cried as if their tiny hearts would break. They were starving, and I had nothing but music for them.”

“Starving!” Nell listened to the word as though at first she did not realize its meaning. “What can I send?” she cried, looking about in vain and into her tiring-room.Her eyes fell suddenly upon the rich jewel upon her finger. “No, no; I cannot think of that,” she thought.

Then the word “starving” came back to her again with all its force. “Starving!” Her imagination pictured all its horrors. “Starving” seemed written on every wall and on the ceiling. It pierced her heart and brain. “Yes, I will,” she exclaimed, wildly. “Here, Strings, old fellow, take the ring to the babes, to cut their teeth on.”

Strings stood aghast. “No, Mistress Nell; it is a present. You must not,” he protested.

“There are others where that came from,” generously laughed Nell.

“You must not; you are too kind,” he continued, firmly.

“Pooh, pooh! I insist,” said Nell as she forced the jewel upon him. “It will make a pretty mouthful; and, besides, I do not want my jewels to outshine me.”

Strings would have followed her and insisted upon her taking back the beautiful gift, but Nell was gone in an instant and her door closed.

“To cut their teeth on!” he repeated as he placed the jewelled ring wonderingly upon his bow-finger and watched it sparkle and laugh in the light as he pretended to play a tune. “She is always joking like that; Heaven reward her.”

He stood lost in the realization of sudden affluence.

Buckingham entered the room from the stage-door. His eyes were full of excitement. “The audience are wild over Nell, simply wild,” he exclaimed in his enthusiasm, unconscious of the fact that he had an auditor, who was equally oblivious of his lordship’s presence. “Gad,” he continued, rapturously, half aloud, half to himself, “when they are stumbling home through London fog, the great comÉdienne will be playing o’er the love-scenes with Buckingham in a cosy corner of an inn. She will not dare deny my bid to supper, with all her impudence. Un petit souper!” He broke into a laugh. “Tis well Old Rowley was too engaged to look twice at Nelly’s eyes,” he thought. “His Majesty shall never meet the wench at arm’s length, an I can help it.”

He observed or rather became aware for the first time that there was another occupant of the room.

“Ah, sirrah,” he called, without noting the character of his companion, “inform Mistress Nell, Buckingham is waiting.”

Strings looked up. He seemed to have grown a foot in contemplation of his sudden wealth. Indeed, each particular tatter on his back seemed to have assumed an independent air.

“Inform her yourself!” he declared; and his manner might well have become the dress of Buckingham. “Lord Strings is not your lackey this season.”

Buckingham gazed at him in astonishment, followed by amusement. “Lord Strings!” he observed. “Lord Rags!”

Strings approached his lordship with a familiar, princely air. “How does that look on my bow-finger, my lord?” and he flourished his hand wearing the ring where Buckingham could well observe it.

His lordship started. “The King’s ring!” he would have exclaimed, had not the diplomat in his nature restrained him. “A fine stone!” he said merely. “How came you by it?”

“Nell gave it to me,” Strings answered.

Buckingham nearly revealed himself in his astonishment. “Nell!” he muttered; and his face grew black as he wondered if his Majesty had out-generalled him. “Damme,” he observed aloud, inspecting the ring closely, “I have taken a fancy to this gem.”

“So have I,” ejaculated Strings, as he avoided his lordship and strutted across the room.

“I’ll give you fifty guineas for it,” said Buckingham, following him more eagerly than the driver of a good bargain is wont.

Strings stood nonplussed. “Fifty guineas!” he exclaimed, aghast. This was more money than the fiddler had ever thought existed. “Now?” he asked, wonderingly.“Now,” replied his lordship, who proceeded at once to produce the glittering coins and toss them temptingly before the fiddler’s eyes.

“Oons, Nell surely meant me to sell it,” he cried as he eagerly seized the gold and fed his eyes upon it. “Odsbud, I always did love yellow.” He tossed some of the coins in the air and caught them with the dexterity of a juggler.

Buckingham grew impatient. He desired a delivery. “Give me the ring,” he demanded.

Strings looked once more at the glittering gold; and visions of the plenty which it insured to his little home, to say nothing of a flagon or two of good brown ale which could be had by himself and his boon comrades without disparagement to the dinners of the little ones, came before him. If he had ever possessed moral courage, it was gone upon the instant. “Done!” he exclaimed. “Oons, fifty guineas!” and he handed the ring to Buckingham.

The fiddler was still absorbed in his possessions, whispering again and again to the round bits of yellow: “My little bright-eyes will not go to bed hungry to-night!” when Manager Hart entered proudly from his tiring-room, dressed to leave the theatre.

Buckingham nodded significantly. “Not a word of this,” he said, indicating the ring, which he had quickly transferred to his own finger, turning the jewel so that it could not be observed.

“’Sdeath, you still here?” said Hart, sharply, as his eyes fell upon the fiddler.

Strings straightened up and puffed with the pomposity and pride of a landed proprietor. He shook his newly acquired possessions until the clinking of the gold was plainly audible to the manager.

“Still here, Master Hart, negotiating. When you are pressed for coin, call on me, Master Hart. I run the Exchequer,” he said, patronizingly. It was humorous to see his air of sweeping condescension toward the tall and dignified manager of the theatre who easily overtopped him by a head.

“Gold!” exclaimed Hart, as he observed the glitter of the guineas in the candle-light. His eyes turned quickly and suspiciously upon the lordly Buckingham.

There was nothing, however, in his lordship’s face to indicate that he was aware even of the existence of the fiddler or of his gold. He sat by the table, leaning carelessly upon it, his face filled with an expression of supreme satisfaction. He had the attitude of one who was waiting for somebody or something and confidently expected not to be disappointed.

“Sup with me, Hart,” continued Strings, with the air of a boon comrade. “Sup with me–venison, capons, and–Epsom water.”

“Thank you, I am engaged to supper,” replied Hart, contemptuously, brushing his cloak where it had been touched by the fiddler, as if his fingers had contaminated it.

The insult clearly observable in the manager’s tone, however, had no effect whatever upon Strings. He tossed his head proudly and said indifferently: “Oh, very well. Strings will sup with Strings. My coach, my coach, I say. Drive me to my bonnie babes!”

He pushed open the door with a lordly air and passed out; and, for some seconds, they heard a mingling of repeated demands for the coach and a strain of music which sounded like “Away dull care; prythee away from me.”

Buckingham had observed the fiddler’s tilt with the manager and the royal exit of the ragged fellow with much amusement. “A merry wag! Who is that?” he asked, as Strings’s voice grew faint in the entry-way.

Hart was strutting actor-fashion before the mirror, arranging his curls to hang gracefully over his forehead and tilting now and again the big plumed hat. “A knave of fortune, it seems,” he answered coolly and still suspiciously.

“Family?” asked Buckingham, indifferently.

“Twins, I warrant,” replied Hart, in an irritated tone.

Buckingham chuckled softly.

“No wonder he’s tattered and gray,” he declared, humorously philosophizing upon Hart’s reply, though it was evident that Hart himself was too much chafed by the presence of his lordship in the greenroom after the play to know what he really had said.

An ominous coolness now pervaded the atmosphere. Buckingham sat by the table, impatiently tapping the floor with his boot, his eyes growing dark at the delay. Hart still plumed himself before the mirror. His dress was rich; his sword was well balanced, a Damascus blade; his cloak hung gracefully; his big black hat and plumes were jaunty. He had, too, vigour in his step. With it all, however, he was a social outcast, and he felt it, while his companion, whose faults of nature were none the less glaring than his own, was almost the equal of a king.

There was a tap at Nell’s door. It was the call-boy, who had slipped unobserved into the room.

“What is it, Dick?” asked Nell, sweetly, as she opened the door slightly to inspect her visitor.“A message,–very important,” whispered Dick, softly, as he passed a note within.

“Thank you,” replied the actress; and the door closed again.

Dick was about to depart, when the alert Buckingham, rising hastily from his seat, called him.

“That was Nell’s voice?” he asked.

“Yes, my lord. She’s dressing,” answered Dick. “Good night, Master Hart,” he added, as he saw the manager.

Hart, however, was not in a good humour and turned sharply upon him. Dick vanished.

“She will be out shortly, my lord,” the manager observed to Buckingham, somewhat coldly. “But it will do you little good,” he thought, as he reflected upon his conversation with Nell.

Buckingham leaned lazily over the back of a chair and replied confidently, knowing that his speech would be no balm to the irate manager: “Nell always keeps her engagements religiously with me. We are to sup together to-night, Hart.”

“Odso!” retorted the other, drawing himself up to his full height. “You will be disappointed, methinks.”

“I trow not,” Buckingham observed, with a smile which made Hart wince. “Pepys’s wife has him mewed up at home when Nelly plays, and the King is tied to other apron-strings.” His lordship chuckled as he bethought him how cleverly he had managed that his Majesty be under the proper influence. “What danger else?” he inquired, cuttingly.

Though the words were mild, the feelings of the two men were at white-heat.

“Your lordship’s hours are too valuable to waste,” politely suggested the manager. “I happen to know Mistress Gwyn sups with another to-night.”

“Another?” sneered his lordship.

“Another!” hotly repeated the actor.

“We shall see, friend Hart,” said Buckingham, in a tone no less agreeable, with difficulty restraining his feelings.

He threw himself impatiently into a big arm-chair, which he had swung around angrily, so that its back was to the manager.

The insult was more than Hart could bear. He also seized a chair, and vented his vengeance upon it. Almost hurled from its place, it fell back to back with Buckingham’s.

“We shall see, my lord,” he said as he likewise angrily took his seat and folded his arms.

It was like “The Schism” of Vibert.

It is difficult to tell what would have been the result, had the place been different. Each knew that Nell was just beyond her door; each hesitated; and each, with bitterness in his heart, held on to himself. They sat like sphinxes.

Suddenly, Nell’s door slightly opened. She was dressed to leave the theatre. In her hand she held a note.

“A fair message, on my honour! Worth reading twice or even thrice,” she roguishly exclaimed unto her maid as she directed her to hold a candle nearer that she might once again spell out its words. “‘To England’s idol, the divine Eleanor Gwyn.’ A holy apt beginning, by the mass! ‘My coach awaits you at the stage-door. We will toast you to-night at Whitehall.’”

Nell’s eyes seemed to drink in the words, and it was her heart which said: “Long live his Majesty.”

She took the King’s roses in her arms; the Duke’s roses, she tossed upon the floor.

The manager awoke as from a trance. “You will not believe me,” he said to Buckingham, confidently. “Here comes the arbiter of your woes, my lord.” He arose quickly.

“It will not be hard, methinks, sir, to decide between a coronet and a player’s tinsel crown,” observed his princely rival, with a sneer, as he too arose and assumed an attitude of waiting.

“Have a care, my lord. I may forget–” Hart’s fingers played upon his sword-hilt.

“Your occupation, sir?” jeered Buckingham.

“Aye; my former occupation of a soldier”; and Hart’s sword sprang from its scabbard, with a dexterity that proved that he had not forgotten the trick of war.

Buckingham too would have drawn, but a merry voice stayed him.

“How now, gentlemen?” sprang from Nell’s rosy lips, as she came between them, a picture of roguish beauty.

Hart’s pose in an instant was that of apology. “Pardon, Nell,” he exclaimed, lifting his hat and bowing in courtly fashion. “A small difference of opinion; naught else.”

“Between friends,” replied Nell, reprovingly.

“By the Gods,” cried Buckingham,–and his hat too was in the air and his knee too was bent before the theatre-queen,–“the rewards are worth more than word-combats.”

“Pshaw!” said Nell, as she hugged the King’s roses tighter in her arms. “True Englishmen fight shoulder to shoulder, not face to face.”

“In this case,” replied his lordship, with the air of a conqueror, “the booty cannot be amicably distributed.”“Oh, ho!” cried Nell. “Brave generals, quarrelling over the spoils. Pooh! There is no girl worth fighting for–that is, not over one! Buckingham! Jack! For shame! What coquette kindles this hot blood?”

“The fairest maid in England,” said Hart, with all the earnestness of conviction, and with all the courtesy of the theatre, which teaches courtesy.

“The dearest girl in all this world,” said Buckingham as quickly; for he too must bow if he would win.

“How stupid!” lisped Nell, with a look of baby-innocence. “You must mean me! Who else could answer the description? A quarrel over poor me! This is delicious. I love a fight. Out with your swords and to’t like men! To the victor! Come, name the quarrel.”

“This player–” began his lordship, hotly. He caught the quick gleam in Nell’s eyes and hesitated. “I mean,” he substituted, apologetically, “Master Hart–labours under the misapprehension that you sup with him to-night.”

“Nell,” asserted the manager, defensively, “it is his lordship who suffers from the delusion that the first actress of England sups with him to-night.”

“My arm and coach are yours, madame,” pleaded his lordship, as he gallantly offered an arm.

“Pardon, my lord; Nell, my arm!” said Hart.

“Heyday!” cried the witch, bewitchingly. “Was ever maid so nobly squired? This is an embarrassment of riches.” She looked longingly at the two attending gallants. There was something in her voice that might be mockery or that might be love. Only the devil in her eyes could tell.

“Gentlemen, you tear my heart-strings,” she continued. “How can I choose between such loves? To-night, I sup at Whitehall!” and she darted quickly toward the door.

“Whitehall!” the rivals cried, aghast.

“Aye, Whitehall–with the King!”

There was a wild, hilarious laugh, and she was gone.

Buckingham and Hart stood looking into each other’s face. They heard the sound of coach-wheels rapidly departing in the street.

MISTRESS NELL IS TOLD OF THE KING’S DANGER.