ence, "you
are entering upon life. You have a position, you have wealth, you have
youth, you have health, and," with a bow, "you have beauty such as God
gives to His creatures only for good purposes. Some women, like Helen of
Troy and Cleopatra, have used their beauty for evil. Others, like my
Queen, Margarita, and like Mary, Queen of the Scots, have held their
beauty as a trust to be exploited for good, as a power to be exercised
on the side of the powerless."

"Your eminence," said Lady Nora, "we are now taught in England that
Queen Mary was not altogether proper."

"She had beauty, had she not?" asked the cardinal.

"Yes," replied Lady Nora.

"She was beheaded, was she not?" asked the cardinal.

"Yes," said Lady Nora, "and by a very plain woman."

"There you have it!" exclaimed the cardinal. "If Elizabeth had been
beautiful and Mary plain, Mary would have kept her head. It is sad to
see beautiful women lose their heads. It is sad to see you lose yours."

"Mine?" exclaimed Lady Nora, and she put her hands up to her hat-pins,
to reassure herself.

"Yes," said the cardinal, "I fear that it is quite gone."

Lady Nora looked at him with questioning eyes. "Yes," she said, "I must
have lost it, for I do not understand you, and I have not always been
dull."

"My dear lady," said the cardinal, "the Earl of Vauxhall was good enough
to pay me a visit this afternoon."

"Oh," exclaimed Lady Nora, clapping her hands, "if I only could have
been behind the curtains! What did he say?"

"He said," replied the cardinal, "that he had asked you to be his wife."

"Indeed he has," said Lady Nora, "and so have others."

"He also said," continued the cardinal, "that you had promised to marry
him when he brought you the turquoise cup."

"And so I will," said Lady Nora.

"He proposed to buy the cup," continued the cardinal. "He offered four
thousand pounds, which, he said, was all he had in the world."

"Good old Bobby!" exclaimed Lady Nora. "That was nice of him, wasn't
it?" and her eyes glistened.

"Yes," said the cardinal, "that was nice of him; but when I had
explained how impossible it was to sell the cup he bade me good-by, and,
as he was going, said, 'I shall have it. All is fair in love and war.' I
feared then that he meant to take the cup. Since I have seen you I am
certain of it."

"What larks!" cried Lady Nora. "Fancy Bobby with a dark lantern, a
bristly beard, and a red handkerchief about his neck. All burgl