The door opened quickly, and in came King Charles; but who would have known him? The royal monarch had assumed the mien and garb of a ragged cavalier.

His eyes swept the inn quickly and approvingly. He turned upon the landlord, who followed him with dubious glances.

“Cook the chickens to a turn; and, mark you, have the turbot and sauce hot, and plenty of wine,” he said. “Look to’t; the vintage I named, Master Landlord. I know the bouquet and sparkle and the ripple o’er the palate.”

“Who is to pay for all this, sir?” asked the landlord, aghast at the order.

“Insolent!” replied Charles. “I command it, sirrah.”

“Pardon, sir,” humbly suggested the landlord; “guineas, and not words, command here.”

“Odso!” muttered the King, remembering his disguise. “My temper will reveal me. Never fear, landlord,” he boasted loudly. “You shall be paid, amply paid. I will pledge myself you shall be paid.”

“Pardon, sir,” falteringly repeated the landlord, rubbing his hands together graciously; “but the order is a costly one and you–”

“Do not look flourishing?” said Charles, as he laughingly finished the sentence, glancing somewhat dubiously himself at his own dress. “Never judge a man by his rags. Plague on’t, though; I would not become my own creditor upon inspection. Take courage, good Master Landlord; England’s debt is in my pocket.”

“How many to supper, sir?” asked the landlord, fearful lest he might offend.

“Two! Two! Only two!” decisively exclaimed Charles. “A man is an extravagant fool who dines more. The third is expensive and in the way. Eh, landlord?”The King winked gaily at the landlord, who grinned in response and dropped his eyes more respectfully.

“Two, sir,” acquiesced the landlord.

“Aye, mine host, thou art favoured beyond thy kind,” laughed Charles, knowingly, as he dwelt upon the joys of a feast incognito alone with Nell. “A belated goddess would sup at thy hostelry.” The landlord’s eyes grew big with astonishment. “I will return. Obey her every wish, dost hear, her every wish, and leave the bill religiously to me.” Charles swaggered gaily up the steps to the entry-way and out the door.

The moon-face of the inn-keeper grew slowly serious. He could not reconcile the shabby, road-bespattered garments of the strange cavalier with his princely commands.

“Body o’ me!” he muttered, lighting one by one the candles in the room, till the rafters fairly glowed in expectation of the feast. “Roundhead-beggar, on my life! Turbot and capons and the best vintage! The King could not have better than this rogue. Marry, he shall have the best in the larder; but Constable Swallow shall toast his feet in the kitchen, with a mug of musty ale to make him linger.”

The corners of the mouth in the moon-face ascended in a chuckle.

“His ragged lordship’ll settle the bill very religiously,” he thought, “or sleep off his swollen Roundhead behind the bars.”

He passed into the kitchen and gave the order for the repast. As he returned, there was a tap at the door; and he hastened to the window.

“Bless me, a petticoat!” he cried. “Well, he’s told the truth for once. She’s veiled. Ashamed of her face or ashamed of him.”

He opened the door and ushered in a lady dressed in white; across her face and eyes was thrown a scarf of lace.

“Not here?” questioned the new-comer, glancing eagerly about the room and peeping into every nook and corner without the asking, to the astonishment of the inn-keeper.“Not here?” she asked herself again, excitedly. “Tell me, tell me, is this Ye Blue Boar Inn?”

“Yes, lady–” replied the landlord, graciously.

“Good, good! Has she been here? Have you seen her?”

“Who, the goddess?” asked the landlord, stupidly.

“The goddess!” retorted Nell, for it was none other, with humorous irony of lip. “How can you so belie the Duchess?” She laughed merrily at the thought.

There was a second knock; and the landlord again hastened to the window.

“’Tis she; ’tis she!” exclaimed Nell, excitedly. “Haste ye, man; I am in waiting! What has she on? How is she dressed?”

“Body o’ me!” exclaimed the landlord, in awe, as he craned his neck at the sash. “’Tis a lady of quality.”

“Bad quality,” ejaculated Nell.

“She has come in a chair of silver,” cried the landlord.

“My chair shall be of beaten gold, then,” thought Nell, with a twinkle of the eye. “Charles, you must raise the taxes.”

“Mercy me, the great lady’s coming in,” continued the landlord, beside himself in his excitement.

“She shall be welcome, most welcome, landlord,” observed Nell promptly.

“Body o’ me! What shall I say?” asked the landlord, in trembling accents.

“Faith and troth,” replied Nell, coming to his rescue, “I will do the parlez-vousing with her ladyship. Haste thee, thou grinning fat man.” She glided quickly into a corner of the old fireplace, where she could not be observed so readily.

The Duchess of Portsmouth entered, with all the haughty grandeur of a queen. She glanced about contemptuously, and her lip could be seen to curl, even through the veil which partially hid her face.

“This bourgeois place,” she said, “to sup with the King! It cannot be! GarÇon!”

“What a voice,” reflected Nell, in her hiding-place, “in which to sigh, ‘I love you.’”

“Barbarous place!” exclaimed Portsmouth. “His Majesty must have lost his wits.”

She smiled complacently, however, as she reflected that the King might consent even within these walls and that his sign-manual, if so secured, would be as binding as if given in a palace.

“GarÇon!” again she called, irritably.

Nell was meanwhile inspecting her rival from top to toe. Nothing escaped her quick eye. “I’ll wager her complexion needs a veil,” she muttered, with vixenish glee. “That gown is an insult to her native France.”

“GarÇon; answer me,” commanded Portsmouth, fretfully.

The landlord had danced about her grace in such anxiety to please that he had displeased. He had not learned the courtier’s art of being ever present, yet never in the way.

“Yes, your ladyship,” he stupidly repeated again and again. “What would your ladyship?”

“Did a prince leave commands for supper?” she asked, impatiently.“No, your ladyship,” he replied, obsequiously. “A ragged rogue ordered a banquet and then ran away, your ladyship.”

“How, sirrah?” she questioned, angrily, though the poor landlord had meant no discourtesy.

“If he knew his guests, he would ne’er return,” softly laughed Nell.

“Parbleu,” continued Portsmouth, in her French, impatient way, now quite incensed by the stupidity of the landlord, “a cavalier would meet me at Ye Blue Boar Inn; so said the messenger.”

She suddenly caught sight of Nell, whose biting curiosity had led her from her hiding-place. “This is not the rendezvous,” she reflected quickly. “We were to sup alone.”

The landlord still bowed and still uttered the meaningless phrase: “Yes, your ladyship.”

The Duchess was at the end of her patience. “Mon Dieu,” she exclaimed, “do you know nothing, sirrah?”

The moon-face beamed. The head bowed and bowed and bowed; the hands were rubbed together graciously.

“Good lack, I know not; a supper for a king was ordered by a ragged Roundhead,” he replied. “Here are two petticoats, your ladyship. When I know which petticoat is which petticoat, your ladyship, I will serve the dinner.”

The tavern-keeper sidled toward the kitchen-door. As he went out, he muttered, judiciously low: “I wouldn’t give a ha’penny for the choice.”

“Beggar!” snapped Portsmouth. “Musty place, musty furniture, musty garÇon, musty everything!”

She stood aloof in the centre of the room as if fearful lest she might be contaminated by her surroundings.

Nell approached her respectfully.

“You may like it better after supper, madame,” she suggested, mildly. “A good spread, sparkling wine and most congenial company have cast a halo o’er more time-begrimed rafters than these.”

“Who are you, madame?” inquired the Duchess, haughtily.“A fellow-passenger on the earth,” gently replied Nell, “and a lover of good company, and–some wine.”

“Yes?” said the Duchess, in a way that only a woman can ask and answer a question with a “yes” and with a look such as only a woman can give another woman when she asks and answers that little question with a “yes.”

There was a moment’s pause.

The Duchess continued: “Perhaps you have seen the cavalier I await.”

“Marry, not I,” replied Nell, promptly; and she bethought her that she had kept a pretty sharp lookout for him, too.

“Is this a proper place for a lady to visit?” pompously inquired the Duchess.

“You raise the first doubt,” said Nell quickly.

“Madame!” exclaimed Portsmouth, interrupting her, with fiery indignation.

“I say, you are the first to question the propriety of the place,” explained Nell, apologetically, though she delighted inwardly at the intended shot which she had given her grace.“I came by appointment,” continued the Duchess; “but it seems I was misled. GarÇon, my chair!”

The Duchess made a move toward the door, but Nell’s words stopped her.

“Be patient, Duchess! He is too gallant to desert you.”

“She knows me!” thought Portsmouth. She turned sharply upon the stranger. “I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance, madame.”

“Such is my loss, not yours,” replied Nell, suavely.

“Remove your veil,” commanded the Duchess; and her eyes flashed through her own.

“I dare not before the beauty of Versailles,” continued Nell, sweetly. “Remove yours first. Then I may take mine off unseen.”

“Do I know you?” suspiciously inquired Portsmouth.

“I fear not,” said Nell, meekly, and she courtesied low. “I am but an humble player–called Nell Gwyn.”

The Duchess raised herself to her full height.“Nell Gwyn!” she hissed, and she fairly tore off her veil.

“Your grace’s most humble servant,” said Nell, again courtesying low and gracefully removing her veil.

“This is a trap,” exclaimed the Duchess, as she realized the situation.

“Heaven bless the brain that set it then,” sweetly suggested Nell.

“Your own, minx,” snapped Portsmouth. “I’ll not look at the hussy!” she muttered. She crossed the room and seated herself upon the bench, back to Nell.

“Your grace would be more kind if you knew my joy at seeing you.”

“And why?” asked the Duchess, ironically.

“I would emulate your warmth and amiability,” tenderly responded Nell.

“Yes?” said Portsmouth; but how much again there was in her little “yes,” accented as it was with a French shrug.

“I adore a beautiful woman,” continued Nell, “especially when I know her to be–”

“A successful rival?” triumphantly asked the Duchess.

“A rival!” exclaimed Nell, in well-feigned astonishment, still toying with the Duchess’s temper. “Is the poor actress so honoured in a duchess’s thought? Your grace is generous.”

If all the angels had united, they could not have made her speech more sweet or her manner more enticing.

“I presumed you might conceive it so,” replied Portsmouth, with mocking, condescending mien.

Nell approached her timidly and spoke softly, lovingly, subserviently.

“A rival to the great Duchess of Portsmouth!” she said. “Perish the thought! It is with trepidation I look upon your glorious face, madame; a figure that would tempt St. Anthony; a foot so small it makes us swear the gods have lent invisible wings to waft you to your conquest. Nay, do not turn your rosy lip in scorn; I am in earnest, so in earnest, that, were I but a man, I would bow me down your constant slave–unless perchance you should grow fat.”The turn was delicious: Nell’s face was a study; and so was Portsmouth’s.

The Duchess sprang to her feet, realizing fully for the first time that she had been trapped and trifled with. “Hussy! Beware your own lacings,” she angrily exclaimed, turning now full face upon her adversary.

Nell was leaning against the table across the room, quietly observing Portsmouth upon the word-wrack. Her whole manner had changed. She watched with evident delight the play of discomfiture, mingled with contempt, upon the beautiful Duchess’s face.

“Me fat!” she derisively laughed. “Be sure I shall never grow too much so. And have not the stars said I shall ne’er grow old?”

“Your stars are falser than yourself,” tartly snapped the Duchess.

“Mayhap,” said Nell, still gleeful; “but mark you this truth: I shall reign queen of Love and Laughter while I live, and die with the first wrinkle.”

She was interrupted by his Majesty, who, unsuspecting, swaggered into the room in buoyant spirits.

“The King!” exclaimed Nell, as she slyly glanced over her shoulder.

The King looked at one woman and then at the other in dismay and horror.

“Scylla and Charybdis!” he muttered, nervously, glancing about for means of escape. “All my patron-saints protect me!”

Nell was by his side in an instant.

“Good even’ to your Majesty,” she roguishly exclaimed. “How can I ever thank you, Sire, for inviting the Duchess to sup with me! I have been eager to meet her ladyship.”

“Ods-pitikins,” he thought, “a loophole for me.”

“Well,–you see–” he said, “a little surprise, Nelly,–a little surprise–for me.” The last two words were not audible to his hearers. He looked at the beautiful rivals an instant, then ventured, “I hoped to be in time to introduce you, ladies.”

“Oh, your Majesty,” asserted Nell, consolingly, “we are already quite well acquainted. I knew her grace through her veil.”

“No doubt on’t,” observed the King, knowingly.

“Yes, Sire,” said the Duchess, haughtily, casting a frigid glance at Nell, “I warrant we understand each other perfectly.”

“Better and better,” said Charles, with a sickly laugh.

His Majesty saw rocks and shoals ahead, and his wits could find no channel of escape. He turned in dire distress upon Nell, who stood aloof. She looked up into his face with the innocence of a babe in every feature.

“Minx, this is your work!” he whispered.

“Yes, Sire!” she answered, mock-reprovingly, bending quite to the floor as she courtesied low.

“‘Yes, Sire.’ Baggage!” he exclaimed good-naturedly despite himself.

As he turned away, praying Heaven to see him out of the difficulty, he observed the landlord, who had just entered with bread and cups, muttering some dubious invocations to himself. He clutched at this piece of human stupidity–like a drowning man clutching at a straw: “Ah, landlord, bring in what we live for; and haste ye, sirrah. The wine! The wine!”

“It is ready, sir,” obsequiously replied the landlord, who had just sense enough in his dull cranium to reflect also, by way of complement, “So is Constable Swallow.”

“Good news, good news!” cried Charles; and he tossed his plumed hat upon the sideboard, preparatory to the feast. “D’ye hear, my fair and loving friends? Come, it is impolite to keep the capons waiting. My arms; my arms!”

The King stepped gallantly between the ladies, making a bold play for peace. The Duchess took one arm formally. Nell seized the remaining arm and almost hugged his Majesty, nestling her head affectionately against his shoulder. Charles observed the decorum of due dignity. He was impartial to a fault; for he realized that there only lay his salvation.The phalanx approached the feast in solemn march. The King tossed his head proudly and observed: “Who would not play the thorn with two such buds to blush on either side?”

There was a halt. The Duchess looked coldly at the table, then coldly at the King, then more coldly at Nell. The King looked at each inquiringly.

“I thought your Majesty ordered supper for three,” she said. “It is set for two.”

“Odsfish, for two!” cried Charles, glancing, anxiously, for the first time at the collation.

Nell had taken her place at the feast, regardless of formality. She was looking out for herself, irrespective of King or Duchess. She believed that a dinner, like the grave, renders all equal.

“Egad!” she exclaimed, as she dwelt upon the force of the Duchess’s observation. “Our host is teaching us the virtues of economy.”

The unsuspecting landlord re-entered at this moment, wine in hand, which he proceeded to place upon the table.“What do you mean, knave, by this treachery!” almost shrieked the King at sight of him. “Another plate, dost hear; another plate, dog!”

“Bless me,” explained the landlord, in confusion, “you said supper for two, sir; that a man was a fool who dined more; that the third was expensive and in the way.”

“Villain!” cried Charles, in a hopeless effort to suppress the fellow, “I said two-two–beside myself. I never count myself in the presence of these ladies.”

The landlord beat a hasty retreat.

The Duchess smiled a chilling smile, and asked complacently:

“Which one of us did you expect, Sire?”

“Yes, which did you expect, Sire?” laughed Nell.

“Oh, my head,” groaned Charles; “well, well,–you see–Duchess, the matter lies in this wise–”

“Let me help your Majesty,” generously interrupted Nell. “Her ladyship is ill at figures. You see, Charles and I are one, and you make two, Duchess.”

“I spoke to the King,” haughtily replied the Duchess, not deigning to glance at Nell.

The King placed his hands upon his forehead in bewilderment.

“This is a question for the Prime Minister and sages of the realm in council.”

“There are but two chairs, Sire,” continued Portsmouth, coldly.

“Two chairs!” exclaimed the Merry Monarch, aghast, as he saw the breach hopelessly widening. “I am lost.”

“That is serious, Sire,” said Nell, sadly; and then her eye twinkled as she suggested, “but perhaps we might make out with one, for the Duchess’s sake. I am so little.”

She turned her head and laughed gaily, while she watched the Duchess’s face out of the corner of her eye.

“’Sheart,” sighed the King, “I have construed grave controversies of state in my time, but ne’er drew the line yet betwixt black eyes and blue, brunette and blonde, when both were present. Another chair, landlord! Come, my sweethearts; eat, drink and forget.”

The King threw himself carelessly into a chair in the hope that, in meat and drink, he might find peace.

“Aye,” acquiesced Nell, who was already at work, irrespective of ceremony, “eat, drink and forget! I prefer to quarrel after supper.”

“I do not,” said the Duchess, who still stood indignant in the centre of the room.

Nell could scarce speak, for her mouthful; but she replied gaily, with a French shrug, in imitation of the Duchess:

“Oh, very well! I have a solution. Let’s play sphinx, Sire.”

Charles looked up hopefully.

“Anything for peace,” he exclaimed. “How is’t?”

“Why,” explained Nell, with the philosophical air of a learned doctor, “some years before you and I thought much about the ways and means of this wicked world, your Majesty, the Sphinx spent her leisure asking people riddles; and if they could not answer, she ate them alive. Give me some of that turbot. Don’t stand on ceremony, Sire; for the Duchess is waiting.”

The King hastened to refill Nell’s plate.

“Thank you,” laughed the vixen; “that will do for now. Let the Duchess propound a riddle from the depths of her subtle brain; and if I do not fathom it upon the instant, Sire, ’t is the Duchess’s–not Nell’s–evening with the King.”

“Odsfish, a great stake!” cried Charles. He arose with a serio-comic air, much pleased at the turn things were taking.

“Don’t be too confident, madame,” ironically suggested the Duchess; “you are cleverer in making riddles than in solving them.”

As she spoke, the room was suddenly filled with savoury odour. The moon-faced landlord had again appeared, flourishing a platter containing two finely roasted chickens. His face glowed with pride and ale.

“The court’s famished,” exclaimed Charles, as he greeted the inn-keeper; “proceed!”“Two capons! I have it,” triumphantly thought Portsmouth, as she reflected upon a riddle she had once heard in far-off France. It could not be known in England. Nothing so clever could be known in England. She looked contemptuously at Nell, and then at the two chickens, as she propounded it.

“Let your wits find then three capons on this plate.”

“Three chickens!” cried Charles, in wonderment, closely scrutinizing the two fowl upon the plate and then looking up inquiringly at the Duchess. “There are but two.”

Nell only gurgled.

“Another glass, landlord, and I’ll see four,” she said. “Here’s to you two, and to me too.” She drank gaily to her toast.

“That is not the answer, madame,” coldly retorted the Duchess.

“Are we come to blows over two innocent chickens?” asked Charles, somewhat concerned still for the outcome. “Bring on your witnesses.” “This is one chicken, your Majesty,” declared the Duchess. “Another’s two; and two and one make three.”

With much formality and something of the air of a conjurer, she counted the first chicken and the second chicken and then recounted the first chicken, in such a way as to make it appear that there were three birds in all.

The King, who was ill at figures, like all true spendthrifts, sat confused by her speech. Nell laughed again. The landlord, who was in and out, stopped long enough to enter upon his bill, in rambling characters, “3 chickens.” This was all his dull ear had comprehended. He then piously proceeded on his way.

“Gadso!” exclaimed the King, woefully. “It is too much for me.”

“Pooh, pooh, ’tis too simple for you, Sire,” laughed Nell. “I solved it when a child. Here is my bird; and here is your bird; and our dearest Duchess shall sup on her third bird!”

Nell quickly spitted one chicken upon a huge fork and so removed it to her own plate. The second chicken, she likewise conveyed to his Majesty’s. Then, with all the politeness which she only could summon, she bowed low and offered the empty platter to the Duchess.

Portsmouth struck it to the board angrily with her gloved hand and steadied herself against the table.

“Hussy!” she hissed, and forthwith pretended to grow faint.

Charles was at her elbow in an instant, supporting her.

“Oh,–Sire, I–” she continued, in her efforts to speak.

“What is it?” cried Charles, seriously, endeavouring to assist her. “You are pale, Louise.”

“I am faint,” replied she, with much difficulty. “Pardon my longer audience, Sire; I am not well. GarÇon, my chair. Assist me to the door.”

The fat landlord made a hasty exit, for him, toward the street, in his desire to help the great lady. Charles supported her to the threshold.

“Call a leech, Sire,” cried Nell after them, with mock sympathy. “Her grace has choked on a chicken-bone.”

“Be still, wench,” commanded the King. “Do not leave us, Louise; it breaks the sport.”

“Nay,” pleaded Nell also, “do not go because of this little merry-making, Duchess. I desire we may become better friends.”

Her voice revived the Duchess.

“Sans doute, we shall, madame,” Portsmouth replied, coldly. “À mon bal! Pas adieu, mais au revoir.”

The great Duchess courtesied low, kissed the King’s hand, arose to her full height and, with an eye-shot at Nell, took her departure.