' she said, archly;
but he was spared from further reply by Philip Sidney's coming to tell
him that the Ambassador was ready to return home. He took leave with
an alacrity that redoubled his courtesy so much that he desired to be
commended to his cousin Diane, whom he had not seen.

'To Diane?' said the lady, inquiringly.

'To Mademoiselle Diane de Ribaumont,' he corrected himself, ashamed of
his English rusticity. 'I beg pardon if I spoke too familiarly of her.'

'She should be flattered by M. le Baron's slightest recollection,' said
the lady, with an ironical tone that there was no time to analyze,
and with a mutual gesture of courtesy he followed Sidney to where Sir
Francis awaited them.

'Well, what think you of the French court?' asked Sidney, so soon as the
young men were in private.

'I only know that you may bless your good fortune that you stand in no
danger from a wife from thence.'

'Ha!' cried Sidney, laughing, 'you found your lawful owner. Why did you
not present me?'

'I was ashamed of her bold visage.'

'What!--was she the beauteous demoiselle I found you gallanting,' said
Philip Sidney, a good deal entertained, 'who was gazing at you with such
visible admiration in her languishing black eyes?'

'The foul fiend seize their impudence!'

'Fie! for shame! thus to speak of your own wife,' said the mischievous
Sidney, 'and the fairest----'

'Go to, Sidney. Were she fairer than Venus, with a kingdom to her dower,
I would none of a woman without a blush.'

'What, in converse with her wedded husband,' said Sidney. 'Were not that
over-shamefastness?'

'Nay, now, Sidney, in good sooth give me your opinion. Should she set
her fancy on me, even in this hour, am I bound in honour to hold by this
accursed wedlock--lock, as it may well be called?'

'I know no remedy,' said Sidney, gravely, 'save the two enchanted founts
of love and hate. They cannot be far away, since it was at the siege of
Paris that Rinaldo and Orlando drank thereof.'

Another question that Berenger would fain have asked Sidney, but could
not for very shame and dread of mockery, was, whether he himself were
so dangerously handsome as the lady had given him to understand. With a
sense of shame, he caught up the little mirror in his casket, and
could not but allow to himself that the features he there saw were
symmetrical--the eyes azure, the complexion of a delicate fairness, such
as he had not seen equaled, except in those splendid