wise you'll keep out of his sight." Then she began to laugh.
"Nay, but I don't know," said she. Then with a swift movement she was by
me, catching at my coat and turning up to me a face full of merriment.
"Shall we play a comedy?" she asked.

"As you will. What shall be my part?"

"I'll give you a pretty part, Simon. Your face is very smooth; nay, do
not fear, I remember so well that I needn't try again. You shall be this
French lady of whom they speak."

"I the French lady! God forbid!"

"Nay, but you shall, Simon. And I'll be the King. Nay, I say, don't be
afraid. I swear you tried to run away then!"

"Is it not prescribed as the best cure for temptation?"

"Alas, you're not tempted!" she said with a pout. "But there's another
part in the comedy."

"Besides the King and Mademoiselle?"

"Why, yes--and a great part."

"Myself by chance?"

"You! No! What should you do in the play? It is I--I myself."

"True, true. I forgot you, Mistress Nell."

"You did forget me, Simon. But I must spare you, for you will have heard
that same charge of fickleness from Mistress Quinton, and it is hard to
hear it from two at once. But who shall play my part?"

"Indeed I can think of none equal to it."

"The King shall play it!" she cried with a triumphant laugh, and stood
opposite to me, the embodiment of merry triumph. "Do you catch the plot
of my piece, Simon?"

"I am very dull," I confessed.

"It's your condition, not your nature, Simon," Nell was so good as to
say. "A man in love is always dull, save to one woman, and she's
stark-mad. Come, can you feign an inclination for me, or have you forgot
the trick?"

At the moment she spoke the handle of the door turned. Again it turned
and was rattled.

"I locked it," whispered Nell, her eyes full of mischief.

Again, and most impatiently, the handle was twisted to and fro.

"Pat, pat, how pat he comes!" she whispered.

A last loud rattle followed, then a voice cried in anger, "Open it, I
bid you open it."

"God help us!" I exclaimed in sad perplexity. "It's the King?"

"Yes, it's the King, and, Simon, the piece begins. Look as terrified as
you can. It's the King."

"Open, I say, open!" cried the King, with a thundering knock.

I understood now that he had been in the other room, and that she had
left his society to come to me; but I understood only dimly why she had
locked the door, and why she now was so slow in opening it. Yet I set my
wits to work, and for