oors. The next morning very
early--for the King rose and donned his monk's robe in the twilight,
stealing to his place in the stalls like any of his Jeronomite
fellows--the two found their way along the vast corridors to the tiny
royal chambers, bare of comfort as monastic cells, but loaded with
petitions, reports, and letters from the four corners of the earth.

"Tell the King that Valentine la Nina, Countess of Astorga, would see
him!"

And at that word the royal confessor, who had come to interview them,
grew suddenly ashen pale in the scant light of a covered morning, as if
the granite of the court in which they stood had been reflected in his
face.

He made a low reverence and withdrew without a word.

At last the two girls were at the door of the King's chamber--a closet
rather than a room. Philip was seated at his desk, his gouty foot on the
eternal leg-rest, a ghastly picture of St. Lawrence over his head, and a
great crucifix in ivory and silver nailed upon the wall, just where the
King's eyes would rest upon it each time he lifted his head.

Claire took in the outward appearance of the mighty monarch who had been
but a name to her up to this moment. He looked not at all like the
"Demon of the South" of her imagination.

A little fair man, in appearance all a Flamand of the very race he
despised, a Flamand of the Flamands His blue eyes were already rheumy
and filmed with age, and when he wished to see anything very clearly he
had a trick of covering the right eye with his hand, thrusting his head
forward, and peering short-sightedly with the other. His hair, though
white, retained some of the saffron bloom which once had marked him in a
crowd as the white _panache_ served the Bearnais. His beard, dirty white
also, was straggling and tufted, as if in secret hours of sorrow it had
been plucked out, Oriental fashion, by the roots.

"My father," said Valentine la Nina, looking at him straight and
fearlessly, "I have come to bid you a good morning. My uncle of Astorga
would have come too, but he prays in his canon's stall in the cathedral
of Leon for his near and dear 'parent,' your Majesty."

The King rose slowly from his chair. His glabrous face showed no
emotion.

"Aid me, my daughter," he said, "I would look in your face."

As he rose, his short-sighted eyes caught the dim silhouette of Claire
standing behind. All a-tremble from head to foot, he stopped short in
what he was about to say.

"And who