ing, his beautiful strong youth and the devotion of his
chosen group of friends: and the winning charm of his manner, as he
looked back with a parting act of homage, brought a flush of pleasure to
her cheek. She stood for a moment, her eyes growing deep with delicious
memories, as she recalled the romance of their first meeting.

But she was conscious of a little pain at her heart, as she waited,
following him with her eyes until the cavalcade was lost to view under
the plumy shadows of the distant cypress-trees. Was it thus that kings
should spend long summer days when there were rumors of discontent in
the air--rumors definite enough to have reached the palace circle in
mysterious undertones, quickly repressed when she turned to ask their
meaning? Should Janus not have given up his pleasure to stay and examine
into the cause which he had laughed away as a mere nothing--a jest of
some discontented courtier of one of the old Greek families who had been
in Cyprus before the days of the Lusignans; and all the more if they
were always alert for fancied slights?

"If he is discontented and it is a mere nothing, why should he not be
summoned to state his grievance?" she had persisted, with a trace of
pleading in her attitude that fretted the King. She was not to concern
herself with questions of state or popular discontent suggesting
unpleasantly the ruling spirit of Helena Paleologue, his father's wife;
and he had not brought a girl-bride from Venice to watch his method of
holding the reins!

His annoyance had been very real under his laughing exterior, as he
kissed the tips of her slender fingers in knightly fashion and assured
her that there was nothing to trouble her dainty head about: she should
keep her rose-leaf beauty dewy fresh for him, without brooding over the
possible meaning of ancient discontented nobles who belonged to an
earlier regime.

A passing thought came over him while he made his laughing protest, of
the four conspirators who had just been put to the cruel death which
Cyprus reserved for her traitors; but their little game was happily
over, and he dismissed the memory with a slight shrug of his graceful
shoulders. "Was there ever a kingdom without malcontents?" he had asked,
turning to his wife. "Was everyone satisfied throughout the length and
breadth of Venetia?"

She did not know, for she had been a mere child in her Venetian home,
without thought for the things of state which few Venetian wome