d stories! You always found new
ones--or made them!"

"I did but tease," she said; "but indeed, for all my mother is so ill,
this is no time for jesting. I have come to see that you get fair play
among them all, my little friend Henry. Though you love me not greatly,
and I did sometimes throw the table-equipage at your head, yet Margot of
France and Navarre is not the woman to see her husband wronged--least of
all by her own mother and that good, excellent, mignon-loving brother of
mine, the King-titular of some small remnant of France."

CHAPTER XVII.

MATE AND CHECKMATE

At this moment, the litter of Catherine de Medici was seen approaching.
D'Epernon had hastened to tell her of the unexpected arrival of her
daughter, the Queen of Navarre.

"No, it cannot be--she is safe at Usson, entertaining all the
Jackass-erie of Auvergne!" cried the Queen-Mother, hastily wrapping
herself in a bundle of dark cloaks, with the ermine sleeves and sable
collars, which the thinness of her blood caused her to wear even in the
heat of the dog-days. Scoffers declared she was getting ready for the
hereafter by accustoming herself gradually to the climate. But those who
knew better were aware that the vital heat was at long and last slowly
oozing from that once tireless body, though the brain above remained
clear and subtle to the end.

D'Epernon helped the Queen-Mother into the litter of ebony and gold in
which she journeyed. She called for her maids-of-honour, but was
informed that they were all busied with welcoming the new arrivals.

Then the face of Catherine took on a hard and bitter expression.

"This is not the first, nor the second time that Margot has outwitted
me"--she almost hissed the words, yet not so low but D'Epernon caught
them. "Has ever a woman who has given all, done all for her family, been
cursed with sons who will do nothing even to save themselves, and a
daughter whose pleasure it is to thwart the mother who bore her?
But--patience, all is not yet lost! Wait a while. Little Margot of the
Large Heart may not be so clever as she thinks!"

Yet so artful was the dissimulation of both women, that when at last
they approached each other, Margot, the Queen of Navarre, threw herself
into her mother's arms, and hid her face (possibly, also, her emotion)
on her shoulder, while Catherine wept real, visible, globular tears over
her one daughter, whom she embraced after so many years.

Only D'Epernon knew that