And presently Pierre Radisson is seated in the king's
presence, chatting unabashed, the cynosure of all eyes. At the stir,
Hortense had turned towards us. For a moment the listless hauteur gave
place to a scarce hidden start. Then the pallid face had looked
indifferently away.

"The huzzy!" mutters Lady Kirke. "She might 'a' bowed in sight of the
whole house! Hoighty-toighty! We shall see, an the little moth so
easily blinded by court glare is not singed for its vanity! Ungrateful
baggage! See how she sits, not deigning to listen one word of all the
young lieutenant is saying! Mary?"

"Yes----"

"You mind I told her--I warned the saucy miss to give more heed to the
men--to remember what it might mean to us----"

"Yes," adds Madame Radisson, "and she said she hated the court----"

"Faugh!" laughs Lady Kirke, fussing and fuming and shifting her place
like a peacock with ruffled plumage, "pride before the fall--I'll
warrant, you men spoiled her in the north! Very fine, forsooth, when a
pauper wench from no one knows where may slight the first ladies of the
land!"

"Madame," said I, "you are missing the play!"

"Master Stanhope," said she, "the play must be marvellous moving! Where
is your colour of a moment ago?"

I had no response to her railing. It was as if that look of Hortense had
come from across the chasm that separated the old order from the new. In
the wilderness she was in distress, I her helper. Here she was of the
court and I--a common trader. Such fools does pride make of us, and so
prone are we to doubt another's faith!

"One slight was enough," Lady Kirke was vowing with a toss of her head;
and we none of us gave another look to the royal boxes that night, though
all about the wits were cracking their jokes against M. Radisson's
"Medusa locks," or "the king's idol, with feet of clay and face of
brass," thereby meaning M. Radisson's moccasins and swarth skin. At the
door we were awaiting M. Radisson's return when the royal company came
out. I turned suddenly and met Hortense's eyes blazing with a hauteur
that forbade recognition. Beside her in lover-like pose lolled that
milliners' dummy whom we had seen humbled in the morning.

Then, promising to rejoin Pierre Radisson at the Fur Company's offices, I
made my adieux to the Kirkes and flung out among those wild revellers who
scoured London streets of a dark night.

[1] The old expression which the law compelled before throwing