cheeks, flashing eyes, panting
bosom, and a neck evidently aching with proud dignity and passion, she
received his low bow with a sweeping curtsey, as lofty as her little
person would permit.

His cheeks burnt like fire, and he would have found words to apologize,
but she cut him short by saying, hastily and low, 'Not a word, Monsieur!
Let us go through it at once. No one shall make game of us.'

He hardly durst look at her again; but as he went through his own
elaborate paces he knew that the little creature opposite was swimming,
bending, turning, bounding with the fluttering fierceness of an angry
little bird, and that the superb eyes were casting flashes on him that
seemed to carry him back to days of early boyhood.

Once he caught a mortified, pleading, wistful glance that made him feel
as if he had inflicted a cruel injury by his thoughtless gaze, and he
resolved to plead the sense of recognition in excuse; but no sooner
was the performance over than she prevented all conversation by saying,
'Lead me back at once to the Queen, sir; she is about to retire.' They
were already so near that there was no time to say anything; he could
only hold as lightly as possible the tiny fingers that he felt burning
and quivering in his hand, and then, after bringing her to the side of
the chair of state, he was forced to release her with the mere whisper
of 'Pardon, Mademoiselle;' and the request was not replied to, save by
the additional stateliness of her curtsey.

It was already late, and the party was breaking up; but his head
and heart were still in a whirl when he found himself seated in the
ambassadorial coach, hearing Lady Walsingham's well-pleased rehearsal of
all the compliments she had received on the distinguished appearance
of both her young guests. Sidney, as the betrothed of her daughter, was
property of her own; but she also exulted in the praises of the young
Lord de Ribaumont, as proving the excellence of the masters whom she
had recommended to remove the rustic clownishness of which he had been
accused.

'Nay,' said Sir Francis; 'whoever called him too clownish for court
spake with design.'

The brief sentence added to Berenger's confused sense of being in a
mist of false play. Could his kinsman be bent on keeping him from
court? Could Narcisse be jealous of him? Mademoiselle de Ribaumont was
evidently inclined to seek him, and her cousin might easily think her
lands safer in his absence. He would have b