ls with no less flagrant humility.

"To be honored with one thought of the great King's mind is to be
honored above the need of women."

French Yolande was less politic. Perhaps she had hoped to hold the
King's fancy more surely than her fellows. She, too, winged her
compliment, but she barbed it with a question.

"Who is the happiest she in all the world?" she asked. "Whom does the
King's pleasure consecrate to-night?"

Robert smiled enigmatically, teasing her with his eyes, teasing her with
his fan. All the women leaned forward their heads, hoping for an answer.
Robert let his gaze travel over their eager faces and laughed aloud,
mockingly.

"Sweet creatures of prey, I will not tell you this secret, for if you
knew you would make an end of her between you, and very surely I would
have her live to see another sunrise. To-morrow, who knows, I may care
no more, and then you may make common cause against her."

He yawned slightly behind the fan, and then made a little gesture of
dismissal, which sent the three women scurrying back from his immediate
presence to the places they had quitted in the courtly ranks. His eyes,
quietly indifferent, travelled over the body of Church dignitaries,
waiting patiently till he should be pleased to tire of women's talk and
turn to them; his gaze rested with no show of interest upon the gray
church and the great effigy of the archangel. He beckoned Hildebrand to
his side.

"Is this the goal of our generosity?" he asked, pointing disdainfully
with the fan to the sacred house. Hildebrand answered with deferential
familiarity.

"This is the church of St. Michael, sire. Your amiable father set it
here in the tenth year of your life."

"Yes, yes, I have heard the story," Robert said, again checking a desire
to yawn. "My excellent parent, fretting over some childish sickness that
presumed upon our person, vowed to build this shrine to his patron saint
if I recovered. As if such men as I ever died in childhood!"

Hildebrand agreed, obsequiously. "May the King live forever," he
murmured. Robert surveyed the church again with cold disfavor.

"Whoever wrought that image, wrought it well," he said. "It is pity to
think of so much skill and so much good metal going to the composition
of a mere saint that might have moulded me a Venus."

Hildebrand raised his hands in pitying protestation against the folly of
the late King.

"Your royal father was something weak of wit," he sneered. Ro