George Cochrane Hazelton

Beau Adair is my name.

The room was not long vacant. The hostess herself returned. She was radiant.

As she crossed the threshold, she glanced back proudly at the revellers, who, led by his Majesty, were turning night into day with their merry-making. She had the right, indeed, to be proud; for the evening, though scarce half spent, bespoke a complete triumph for her entertainment. This was the more gratifying too, in that she knew that there were many at court who did not wish the “imported” Duchess, as they called her, or her function well, though they always smiled sweetly at each meeting and at each parting and deigned now to feast beyond the limit of gentility upon her rich wines and collations.

The bal masquÉ, however, as we have seen, was with the Duchess but a means to an end. She took from the hand of a pretty page the treaties, lately re-drawn by Bouillon, and glanced hastily over the parchments to see that her instructions from Louis were covered by their words. A smile played on her arching lips as she read and re-read and realized how near she was to victory.

“’Tis Portsmouth’s night to-night!” she mused. “My great mission to England is nearly ended. Dear France, I feel that I was born for thy advancement.”

She seated herself by the table, where the materials for writing had been placed, and further dwelt upon the outcome of the royal agreements, their contingencies and triumphs. She could write Charles Rex almost as well as the King, she thought, as her eye caught the places left for his signature.

“Bouillon never fails me,” she muttered. “Drawn by King Charles’s consent, except perchance some trifling articles which I have had interlined for Louis’s sake. We need not speak of them. It would be troublesome to Charles. A little name and seal will make these papers history.”

Her reflections were interrupted by the return of Buckingham, who was laughing so that he could scarcely speak.

“What is ’t?” she asked, petulantly.

“The guard have stayed but now a gallant, Irish youth,” replied he, as best he could for laughter, “who swore that he had letters to your highness. Oh, he swore, indeed; then pleaded; then threatened that he would fight them all with single hand. Of course, he won the ladies’ hearts, as they entered the great hall, by his boyish swagger; but not the guards. Your orders were imperative–that none unbidden to the ball could enter.”

“’Tis well,” cried Portsmouth. “None, none! Letters to me! Did he say from whom?”

“He said,” continued Buckingham, still laughing, “that he was under orders of his master to place them only in the Duchess’s hands. Oh, he is a very lordly youth.”

The Duke throughout made a sad attempt at amusing imitations of the brogue of the strange, youthful, Irish visitor who, with so much importunity, sought a hearing.

Portsmouth reflected a moment and then said: “I will see him, Buckingham, but briefly.”

Buckingham, not a little surprised, bowed and departed graciously to convey the bidding.

The Duchess lost herself again in thought. “His message may have import,” she reflected. “Louis sends strange messengers ofttimes.”

In the midst of her reverie, the tapestry at the door was again pushed back, cautiously this time, then eagerly. There entered the prettiest spark that ever graced a kingdom or trod a measure.

It was Nell, accoutred as a youth; and a bold play truly she was making. Her face revealed that she herself was none too sure of the outcome.

“By my troth,” she thought, as she glanced uncomfortably about the great room, “I feel as though I were all breeches.” She shivered. “It is such a little way through these braveries to me.”

Her eyes turned involuntarily to the corner where Portsmouth sat, now dreaming of far-off France.

“The Duchess!” her lips breathed, almost aloud, in her excitement. “So you’d play hostess to his Majesty,” she thought, “give a royal ball and leave poor Nelly home, would you?”

The Duchess was conscious only of a presence.

“GarÇon!” she called, without looking up.

Nell jumped a foot.

“That shook me to the boots,” she ejaculated, softly.

“GarÇon!” again called the impatient Duchess.

“Madame,” answered Nell, fearfully, the words seeming to stick in her fair throat, as she hastily removed her hat and bethought her that she must have a care or she would lose her head as well, by forgetting that she was an Irishman with a brogue.“Who are you?” asked Portsmouth, haughtily, as, rising, with surprised eyes, she became aware of the presence of a stranger.

Indeed, it is not strange that she was surprised. The youth who stood before her was dressed from top to toe in gray–the silver-gray which lends a colour to the cheek and piquancy to the form. The dress was of the latest cut. The hat had the longest plume. The cloak hung gracefully save where the glistening sword broke its falling lines. The boots were neat, well rounded and well cut, encasing a jaunty leg. The dress was edged with silver.

Ah, the strange youth was a love, indeed, with his bright, sparkling eyes, his lips radiant with smiles, his curls falling to his shoulders.

“Well,” stammered Nell, in awkward hesitation but in the richest brogue, as the Duchess repeated her inquiry, “I’m just I, madame.”

The Duchess smiled despite herself.

“You’re just you,” she said. “That’s very clear.”“Yes, that’s very clear,” reiterated Nell, still fearful of her ground.

“A modest masker, possibly,” suggested Portsmouth, observing the youth’s embarrassment and wishing to assist him.

“Yea, very modest,” replied Nell, her speech still stumbling, “almost ashamed.”

Portsmouth’s eyes looked sharply at her.

“She suspects me,” thought Nell, and her heart leaped into her throat. “I am lost–boots and all.”

“Your name?” demanded the Duchess again, impatiently.

For the life of her Nell could not think of it.

“You see,” she replied evasively, “I’m in London for the first time in my present self, madame, and–”

“Your name and mission, sir?” The tone was imperative.

Nell’s wits returned to her.

“Beau Adair is my name,” she stammered, “and your service my mission.”

It was out, though it had like to have choked her, and Nell was more herself again. The worst she had feared was that the Duchess might discover her identity and so turn the tables and make her the laughing-stock at court. She grew, indeed, quite hopeful as she observed a kindly smile play upon the Duchess’s lips and caught the observation: “Beau Adair! A pretty name, and quite a pretty fellow.”

A smile of self-satisfaction and a low bow were Nell’s reply.

“Vain coxcomb!” cried Portsmouth, reprovingly, though she was highly amused and even pleased with the strange youth’s conceit.

“Nay; if I admire not myself,” wistfully suggested Nell, in reply, with pretence of much modesty, “who will praise poor me in this great palace?”

“You are new at court?” asked Portsmouth, doubtingly.

“Quite new,” asserted Nell, gaining confidence with each speech. “My London tailor made a man of me only to-day.”

“A man of you only to-day!” cried the Duchess, in wonderment.

“He assured me, madame,” Nell hastened to explain, “that the fashion makes the man. He did not like my former fashion. It hid too much that was good, he said. I am the bearer of this letter to the great Duchess of Portsmouth; that you are she, I know by your royalty.”

She bowed with a jaunty, boyish bow, sweeping the floor with her plumed hat, as she offered the letter.

“Oh, you are the gentleman,” said Portsmouth, recalling her request to Buckingham, which for the instant had quite escaped her. She took the letter and broke the seal eagerly.

“She does not suspect,” thought Nell; and she crossed quickly to the curtained arch, leading to the music and the dancing, in the hope that she might see the King.

Portsmouth, who was absorbed in the letter, did not observe her.

“From Rochet! Dear Rochet!” mused the Duchess, as she read aloud the lines: “‘The bearer of this letter is a young gallant, very modest and very little versed in the sins of court.’”“Very little,” muttered Nell, with a mischievous wink, still intent upon the whereabouts and doings of the King.

“‘He is of excellent birth,’” continued the Duchess, reading, “‘brave, young and to be trusted–to be trusted. I commend him to your kindness, protection and service, during his stay in town.’”

She reflected a moment intently upon the letter, then looked up quickly. Nell returned, somewhat confused, to her side.

“This is a very strong letter, sir,” said Portsmouth, with an inquiring look.

“Yes, very strong,” promptly acquiesced Nell; and she chuckled as she recalled that she had written it herself, taking near a fortnight in the composition. Her fingers ached at the memory.

“Where did you leave Rochet?” inquired the Duchess, almost incredulously.

“Leave Rochet?” thought Nell, aghast. “I knew she would ask me something like that.”

There was a moment’s awkwardness–Nell was on difficult ground. She feared lest she might make a misstep which would reveal her identity. The Duchess grew impatient. Finally, Nell mustered courage and made a bold play for it, as ever true to her brogue.

“Where did I leave Rochet?” she said, as if she had but then realized the Duchess’s meaning, then boldly answered: “In Cork.”

“In Cork!” cried Portsmouth, in blank surprise. “I thought his mission took him to Dublin.” She eyed the youth closely and wondered if he really knew the mission.

“Nay; Cork!” firmly repeated Nell; for she dared not retract, lest she awaken suspicion. “I am quite sure it was Cork I left him in.”

“Quite sure?” exclaimed the Duchess, her astonishment increasing with each confused reply.

“Well, you see, Duchess,” said Nell, “we had an adventure. It was dark; and we were more solicitous to know whither the way than whence.”

The Duchess broke into a merry laugh. The youth had captured her, with his wistful, Irish eyes, his brogue and his roguish ways.

“We give a ball to-night,” she said, gaily. “You shall stay and see the King.”

“The King!” cried Nell, feigning fright. “I should tremble so to see the King.”

“You need not fear,” laughed the hostess. “He will not know you.”

“I trust not, truly,” sighed Nell, with much meaning, as she scanned her scanty masculine attire.

“Take my mask,” said the Duchess, graciously. “As hostess, I cannot wear it.”

Nell seized it eagerly. She would be safe with this little band of black across her eyes. Even the King would not know her.

“I shall feel more comfortable behind this,” she said, naÏvely.

“Did you ever mask?” inquired Portsmouth, gaily.

“Nay, I am too honest to deceive,” answered Nell; and her eyes grew so round and so big, who would not believe her?

AS A CAVALIER MISTRESS NELL DECEIVES EVEN THE KING.

“But you are at court now,” laughed the Duchess, patronizingly. “Masking is the first sin at court.”

“Then I’ll begin with the first sin,” said Nell, slyly, raising the Duchess’s fingers to her lips, “and run the gamut.”

They passed together into the great ball-room, Nell exercising all her arts of fascination–and they were many. The music ceased as they entered. The dancers, and more especially the ladies, eyed curiously the jaunty figure of the new-comer. There were merry whisperings among them.

“Who can he be?” asked one, eagerly. “What a pretty fellow!” exclaimed a second, in admiration. “I’ve been eying him,” said a third, complacently.

The men too caught the infection.

“Who can he be?” inquired Rochester.

“Marry, I’ll find out,” said Lady Hamilton, with an air of confidence, having recovered by this time from the kisses which had been thrust upon her and being now ready for a new flirtation.

She approached Adair, artfully, and inquired: “Who art thou, my butterfly? Tell me now, e’er I die.” Her attitude was a credit to the extremes of euphuism.

There was general laughter at her presumptuous and effete pose and phrase.

The ladies had gathered about the new hero, like bees about new clover. The gallants stood, or sat as wall-flowers in a row, deserted. The King too had been abandoned for the lion of the hour and sat disconsolate.

“Peace, jealous ones!” cried Lady Hamilton, reprovingly, then continued, with a winning way: “I know thou art Apollo himself, good sir.”

Nell smiled complacently, though she felt her mask, to assure herself that it was firm.

“Apollo, truly,” she said, jauntily, “if thou art his lyre, sweet lady.”

Lady Hamilton turned to the Duchess.

“Oh, your grace,” she asked, languishingly, “tell us in a breath, tell us, who is this dainty beau of the ball?”

“How am I to know my guests,” answered Portsmouth, feigning innocence, “with their vizors down? Nay, sweet sir, unmask and please the ladies. I’faith, who art thou?”

The hostess was delighted. The popularity of the new-comer was lending a unique novelty to her entertainment. She was well pleased that she had detained Monsieur Adair. She thought she saw a jealous look in the King’s usually carelessly indifferent gaze when she encouraged the affectionate glances of the Irish youth.

“I’faith,” laughed Nell, in reply, “I know not, Duchess.”

“D’ye hear?” said Portsmouth. “He knows not himself.”

“But I have a suspicion, Duchess,” sighed Nell.

“Hark ye,” laughed Portsmouth, with a very pretty pout, “he has a suspicion, ladies.”

“Nay, you will tell?” protested Nell, as the ladies gathered closer about her in eager expectation.

There was a unison of voices to the contrary.“Trust us, fair sir,” said one. “Oh, we are good at keeping secrets.”

“Then, ’twixt you and me, I am–” began Nell; and she hesitated, teasingly.

The group about grew more eager, more wild with curiosity.

“Yes, yes–” they exclaimed together.

“I am,” said Nell, “the Pied Piper of Hamlin Town.”

“The rat-catcher,” cried Portsmouth. “Oh, oh, oh!”

There was a lifting of skirts, revealing many high-born insteps, and a scramble for chairs, as the ladies reflected upon the long lines of rats in the train of the mesmeric Pied Piper.

“Flee, flee!” screamed Lady Hamilton, playfully. “He may pipe us into the mountains after the children.”

“You fill me with laughter, ladies,” said Portsmouth to her guests. “The man does not live who can entrap me.”

“The woman does,” thought Nell, as, mock-heroically, she placed near her lips a reed-pipe which she had snatched from a musician in the midst of the fun; and, whistling a merry tune which the pipe took no part in, she circled about the room, making quite a wizard’s exit.

The ladies, heart and soul in the fun, fell into line and followed, as if spell-bound by the magic of the Piper.

Charles, James, Rochester and the gallants, who remained, each of whom had been in turn deserted by his fair lady, unmasked and looked at one another in wonderment. Of one accord, they burst into a peal of laughter.

“Sublime audacity,” exclaimed Charles. “Who is this curled darling–this ball-room Adonis? Ods-pitikins, we are in the sear and yellow leaf.”

“Truly, Sire,” said James, dryly, “I myself prefer a gathering of men only.”

“Brother James,” forthwith importuned the King, waggishly, “will you favour me with your lily-white hand for the next dance? I am driven to extremity.”

“Pardon, Sire,” replied James, quite humorously for him, “I am engaged to a handsomer man.”

“Odsfish,” laughed Charles, “King Charles of England a wall-flower. Come, Rochester, my epitaph.”

The King threw himself into a chair, in an attitude of hopeless resignation, quite delicious.

Rochester perked up with the conceit and humour of the situation. With the utmost dignity, and with the quizzical, pinched brow of the labouring muse, halting at each line, he said:

“Here lies our sovereign lord, the King,
Whose word no man relies on;
Who never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one!”

The post-mortem verse was sufficiently subtle and clever to revive the King’s drooping spirits; and he joined heartily in the applause.

“The matter,” he said, approvingly, “is easily accounted for–my discourse is my own, my actions are my Ministry’s.”

There was a frou-frou of petticoats. The hostess entered gaily.

“The King! The courtiers! Unmasked!” she exclaimed, in coy reproof. “Fy, fy, your Majesty! For shame! Gallants! Are you children that I must pair you off?”

“We are seeking consolation,” suggested Charles, dryly; “for modest souls have small chance to-night, Louise.”

He nodded significantly in the direction of the great ball-room, where the chatter of women’s voices betokened the unrivalled popularity of Nell.

“When did you turn modest, Sire?” slyly inquired Portsmouth, with a look of love.

“When I was out-stripped in audacity by yon Hibernian youth,” replied the King, seriously. “Who is this peacock you are introducing?”

A peal of laughter from without punctuated the King’s speech. It was the reward of a wit-thrust from Nell.

“The Piper the maids would now unmask?” queried Portsmouth, rapturously. “Marry, ’tis the fascinating Beau Adair of Cork, entertaining the ladies. Oh, he is a love, Sire; he does not sulk in corners. See! See!”She pointed toward the archway, through which Nell was plainly visible. She was strutting jauntily back and forth upon the promenade. It is unnecessary to say that she was escorted by the assembled fair ones.

As Nell caught the eye of the hostess in the distance, she gaily tossed a kiss to her.

“’Sdeath, that I were a woman to hope for one of his languishing smiles,” observed Buckingham.

“Even the old hens run at his call,” sneered the pious James, in discontent; for he too had been deserted by his ladylove and even before the others.

The King looked at his brother with an air of bantering seriousness, to the delight of all assembled.

“Brother James is jealous of the old ones only,” he observed. “You know his favourites are given him by his priests for penance.”

A merry ripple ran through the group.

The hostess took advantage of the King’s speech to make a point.“And you are jealous of the young ones only,” she said, slyly, quickly adding as a bid for jealousy: “Pooh, pooh! Le Beau had letters to me, Sire. Nay, we do not love him very much. We have not as yet had time.”

“Alas, alas,” sighed Charles, with drooping countenance, “that it should come to this.”

“My liege, I protest–” cried Portsmouth, hastily, fearful lest she might have gone too far. “To-night is the first I ever saw the youth. I adore you, Sire.”

“Not a word!” commanded Charles, with mock-heroic mien. He waved his hand imperatively to his followers. “Friends,” he continued, “we will mix masks and dominoes and to’t again to drown our sorrow.”

“In the Thames?” inquired James, facetiously for him.

“Tush! In the punch-bowl, pious brother!” protested the Merry Monarch, with great dignity. “You know, a very little water will drown even a king.”

The gallants mixed masks and dominoes in obedience to the royal wish. The King, sighing deeply, cast a hopeless glance at Portsmouth, not without its tinge of humour. He then sauntered slowly toward the windows of the great ball-room, followed subserviently by all the courtiers, save Buckingham, who was lost in converse with player Hart.

“Hark ye,” suddenly broke off Buckingham, observing the approach of Adair and his adorers, “here come again the merry maskers. By Bacchus, the little bantam still reigns supreme. The King and his gallants in tears. Let us join the mourners, Master Hart.”

As the Duke and the player, the former assuming a fraternal air for an end of his own, joined the royal group, Nell re-entered gaily, every inch the man. She was still surrounded by the ladies, who, fluttering, flattering and chattering, hung upon her every word. With one hand she toyed with her mask, which she had good-naturedly dropped as none were about who knew her. She clapped it, however, quickly to her eyes at sight of the King.“You overwhelm me, my fair ones,” she said, with spirit, as she held court in the centre of the room. “I assure you, I am not used to such attention–from the ladies.”

“Our hospitality is beggarly to your deserts,” sighed Portsmouth, who had joined the bevy, but loud enough for the King to hear.

“You quite o’erpower me, Duchess,” answered Nell, modestly, adding for the satisfaction of her own sense of humour: “No wonder we men are fools, if you women talk like this.”

While she was speaking, Lady Hamilton whispered facetiously in Portsmouth’s ear.

“Beau Adair married!” exclaimed the Duchess, in response. “It cannot be. He looks too gay for a married man.”

“No confidences, my pretty ones,” observed Nell, reprovingly.

The hostess hesitated; then she out with it in a merry strain.

“Lady Hamilton asks after the wife you left at home.”“My wife!” cried Nell, in astonishment; for this phase of her masquerading had not presented itself to her before. “Great Heavens, I have no wife–I assure you, ladies!”

“So?” observed Portsmouth, her curiosity awakened. “Modest–for a bachelor.”

“A bachelor!” exclaimed Nell, now fully en rapport with the spirit of the situation. “Well,–not exactly a bachelor either,–ladies.”

“Alack-a-day,” sighed Lady Hamilton, with a knowing glance at her companions, “neither a bachelor nor a married man!”

“Well, you see–” explained Nell, adroitly, “that might seem a trifle queer, but–I’m in mourning–deeply in mourning, ladies.”

She drew a kerchief from her dress and feigned bitter tears.

“A widower!” tittered Lady Hamilton, heartlessly. “Our united congratulations, sir.”

The other ladies one by one sobbed with affected sympathy, wiping their eyes tenderly, however, lest they might remove the rich colour from their cheeks.

“Mesdames,” said Nell, reprovingly, “the memory is sacred. Believe me, very sacred.”

She fell apparently once again to weeping bitterly.

“The memory is always sacred–with men,” observed Portsmouth, for the benefit of her guests, not excepting the Irish youth. “Nay, tell us the name of the fair one who left you so young. My heart goes out to you, dear Beau.”

“Kind hostess,” replied Nell, assuming her tenderest tones, “the name of my departed self is–Nell!”

Hart caught the word. The player was standing near, reflecting on the scene and on the honeyed words of the Duke of Buckingham, who was preparing the way that he might use him.

“Nell!” he muttered. “Who spoke that name?”

The hostess too was startled.

“Nell!” she exclaimed, with contending emotions. “Strange! Another cavalier who graces mon bal masquÉ to-night has lost a loved one whose name is Nell. Ah, but she was unworthy of his noble love.”

She spoke pointedly at the masked King, who started perceptibly.

“Yes,” he thought; for his conscience smote him, “unworthy–he of her.”

“Unworthy, truly, if he dances so soon and his own Nell dead,” added Nell, reflectively, but so that all might hear, more especially Charles.

“Perchance Nell too thinks so,” thought he, as he restlessly walked away, sighing: “I wish I were with her on the terrace.”

“’Sdeath, Duchess,” continued Nell abruptly, in assumed horror at the sudden thought, “the lady’s spirit may visit the ball, to the confusion of us all. Such things have been.”

“The Nell I mean,” said Portsmouth, with a confident smile, “will not venture here, e’en in spirit.”

Nell assumed a baby-innocence of face.“She has not been bidden, I presume?” she queried.

“The vixen would not stop for asking,” declared Portsmouth, almost fiercely.

“Come without asking?” cried Nell, as if she could not believe that there could be such people upon the earth. “How ill-bred! Thine ear, loved one. My Nell revisits the world again at midnight. The rendezvous–St. James’s Park.”

Hart brushed close enough to the group, in his biting curiosity, to catch her half-whisper to Portsmouth. He at once sought a window and fresh air, chafing with surprise and indignation at what he had overheard.

“St. James’s at midnight,” he muttered. “’Tis my Nell’s abode.”

The Duchess herself stood stunned at what appeared to her a possible revelation of great import.

“St. James’s!” she thought. “Can he mean Madame Gwyn? No, no!”

The look of suspicion which for an instant had clouded her face changed to one of merriment, under Adair’s magic glance.“And you would desert me for such a fleshless sprite?” she asked.

“Not so,” said Nell, with a winning look; “but, when my better-half returns to life, I surely cannot refuse an interview–especially an she come from afar.”

Nell’s eyes arose with an expression of sadness, while her finger pointed down–ward in the direction of what she deemed the probable abode of her departed “Nell.” Her lips twitched in merriment, however, despite her efforts to the contrary; and the hostess fell a-laughing.

“Ladies,” she cried, as she appealed to one and all, “is not le Beau a delight–so different from ordinary men?”

“I am not an ordinary man, I assure you,” Nell hastened to declare.

This assertion was acquiesced in by a buzz of pretty compliments from the entire bevy of ladies. “Positively charming!” exclaimed one. “A perfect love!” said another.

Nell listened resignedly.

“’Sheart,” she said, at length, with an air of ennui, “I cannot help it. ’Tis all part of being a man, you know.”

“Would that all men were like you, le Beau!” sighed the hostess, not forgetting to glance at the King, who again sat disconsolate, in the midst of his attendant courtiers, drawn up, as in line of battle, against the wall.

“Heaven help us if they were!” slyly suggested Nell.

Rochester, who had been watching the scene in his mischievous, artistic way, drew from Portsmouth’s compliment to Adair another meaning. He was a mixture ’twixt a man of arts and letters and Satan’s own–a man after the King’s own heart. Turning to the King, with no desire to appease the mischief done, he said, banteringly:

“Egad, there’s a rap at you, Sire. France would make you jealous.”

The Duke of Buckingham too, though he appeared asleep, had seen it all.

“And succeeds, methinks,” he reflected, glancing approvingly in the direction of the Irish youth. “A good ally, i’faith.”Nell, indeed, was using all her arts of fascination to ingratiate herself with the Duchess, and making progress, too.

“Your eyes are glorious, fair hostess,” she said, in her most gallant love-tones, “did I not see my rival in them.”

She could not, however, look at Portsmouth for laughter, as she thought: “I believe lying goes with the breeches; I never was so proficient before.”

The compliment aroused the King’s sluggish nature.

“I can endure no more, gallants,” cried he, with some pretence of anger, rising abruptly, followed, of course, in each move and grimace by his courtier-apes, in their desire to please. “Are we to be out-done in our own realm by this usurper with a brogue? Ha! The fiddlers! Madame, I claim the honour of this fair hand for the dance.”

At the sound of the music, he had stepped gallantly forward, taking the hostess’s hand.

“My thanks, gallant masker,” replied the Duchess, pretending not to know him for flattery’s sake, “but I am–”

To her surprise, she had no opportunity to complete the sentence.

“Engaged! Engaged!” interposed Nell, coming unceremoniously between them, with swaggering assumption and an eye-shot at the King through the portal of her mask. “Forsooth, some other time, strange sir.”

The hostess stood horrified.

“Pardon, Sir Masker,” she hastened to explain; “but the dance was pledged–”

“No apologies, Duchess,” replied the King, as he turned away, carelessly, with the reflection: “All’s one to me at this assemblage.”

He crossed the room, turning an instant to look, with a humorous, quizzical glance, at Portsmouth. Nell mistook the glance for a jealous one and, perking up quickly, caught the royal eye with a challenging eye, tapping her sword-hilt meaningly. Had the masks been off, the situation would have differed. As it was, the King smiled indifferently. The episode did not affect him further than to touch his sense of humour. Nell turned triumphantly to her partner.

“Odsbud,” she exclaimed, with a delicious, youthful swagger, “we may have to measure swords in your behalf, dear hostess. I trow the fellow loves you.”

“Have a care,” whispered the Duchess, nervously. “It is the King.”

“What care I for a king?” saucily replied Nell, with a finger-snap. She had taken good care, however, to speak very low. “My arm, my arm, Duchess!” she continued, with a gallant step. “Places, places; or the music will outstrip us.”

“Strut on, my pretty bantam,” thought Buckingham, whose eyes lost little that might be turned to his own advantage; “I like you well.”

There was no mending things at this stage by an apology. The Duchess, therefore, tactfully turned the affair into one of mirth, in which she was quickly joined by her guests. With a merry laugh, she took the Irish gallant’s proffered arm, and together they led the dance. The King picked a lady indifferently from among the maskers.

It was a graceful old English measure. Nell’s roguish wits, as well as her feet, kept pace with the music. She assured her partner that she had never loved a woman in all her life before and followed this with a hundred merry jests and sallies, keyed to the merry fiddles, so full of blarney that all were set a-laughing. Anon, the gallants drew their swords and crossed them in the air, while the ladies tiptoed in and out. Nell’s blade touched the King’s blade. When all was ended the swords saluted with a knightly flourish, then tapped the floor.

There was an exultant laugh from one and all, and the dance was done.

Nell hastened to her partner’s side. She caught the Duchess’s hand and kissed it.

“You dance divinely, your grace,” she said. “A goddess on tiptoe.”

“Oh, Beau Adair!” replied the Duchess, courtseying low; and her eyes showed that she was not wholly displeased at the warmth of his youthful adoration.“Oh, Duchess!” said Nell, fondly, acknowledging the salute.

The Duchess hastened to join his Majesty and together they threaded their way through many groups.

Nell tossed her head.

“How I love her!” she muttered, veiling the sarcasm under her breath.

She crossed the great room, her head erect. Her confidence was quite restored. This had been the most difficult bit of acting she had ever done; and how well it had been done!

The other dancers in twos and threes passed from the room in search of quiet corners, in which to whisper nothings.

Nell’s eyes fell upon Strings, who had had a slight turn for the better in the world and who now, in a dress of somewhat substantial green, was one of the fiddlers at the Duchess’s ball.

“How now, sirrah!” she said, sharply, as she planted herself firmly before him to his complete surprise. “I knew you were here.”

She placed one of her feet in a devil-may-care fashion upon a convenient chair in manly contempt of its upholstery and peeped amusedly through her mask at her old friend. He looked at her in blank amazement.

“Gads-bobbs,” he exclaimed, in confusion, “the Irish gentleman knows me!”

“There’s nothing like your old fiddle, Strings,” continued Nell, still playing with delight upon his consternation. “It fills me with forty dancing devils. If you were to play at my wake, I would pick up my shroud, and dance my way into Paradise.”

“Your lordship has danced to my fiddling before?” he gasped, in utter amazement.

“Danced!” gleefully cried Nell. “I have followed your bow through a thousand jigs. To the devil with these court-steps. I’m for a jig, jig, jig, jig, jig! Oh, I’m for a jig! Tune up, tune up, comrade; and we’ll have a touch of the old days at the King’s House.”

“The King’s House! Jigs!” exclaimed the fiddler, now beside himself.“Jigs!” chuckled Nell. “Jigs are my line of business.”

The room had now quite cleared; and, protected by a friendly alcove, Nell punctuated the old song with a few happily turned jig-steps. Strings looked at her a moment in bewilderment: then his face grew warm with smiles; the mystery was explained.

“Mistress Nell, as I live,” he cried, joyously, “turned boy!”

“The devil fly away with you, you old idiot! Boy, indeed!” replied Nell, indignantly. “I’m a full-grown widower!”

She had removed her mask and was dancing about Strings gleefully.

There was the sound of returning voices.

“Oons, you will be discovered,” exclaimed Strings, cautiously.

“Marry, I forgot,” whispered Nell, glancing over her shoulder. “You may have to help me out o’ this scrape, Strings, before the night is done.”

“You can count on me, Mistress Nell, with life,” he replied, earnestly.

“I believe you!” said Nell, in her sympathetic, hearty way. Her mind reverted to the old days when Strings and she were at the King’s. “Oh, for just one jig with no petticoats to hinder.”

Nell, despite herself, had fallen into an old-time jig, with much gusto, for her heart was for a frolic always, when Strings, seized her arm in consternation, pointing through the archway.

“The King!” she exclaimed.

She clapped her mask to her eyes and near tumbled through the nearest arras out of the room in her eagerness to escape, dragging her ever-faithful comrade with her.