untains,
and hath not yet acquired our most Christian language.--Right.--So,
if they speak to thee, thou wilt not answer--this will free you
from embarrassment, and lead them to converse without regard to your
presence. You understand me.--Farewell. Be wary, and thou hast a
friend."

The King had scarce spoken these words ere he disappeared behind the
arras, leaving Quentin to meditate on what he had seen and heard. The
youth was in one of those situations from which it is pleasanter to look
forward than to look back; for the reflection that he had been planted
like a marksman in a thicket who watches for a stag, to take the life of
the noble Count of Crevecoeur, had in it nothing ennobling. It was very
true that the King's measures seemed on this occasion merely cautionary
and defensive; but how did the youth know but he might be soon
commanded on some offensive operation of the same kind? This would be an
unpleasant crisis, since it was plain, from the character of his master,
that there would be destruction in refusing, while his honour told him
that there would be disgrace in complying. He turned his thoughts from
this subject of reflection with the sage consolation so often adopted by
youth when prospective dangers intrude themselves on their mind, that it
was time enough to think what was to be done when the emergence actually
arrived, and that sufficient for the day was the evil thereof.

Quentin made use of this sedative reflection the more easily that the
last commands of the King had given him something more agreeable to
think of than his own condition. The Lady of the Lute was certainly one
of those to whom his attention was to be dedicated; and well in his mind
did he promise to obey one part of the King's mandate, and listen with
diligence to every word that might drop from her lips that he might know
if the magic of her conversation equalled that of her music. But with
as much sincerity did he swear to himself, that no part of her discourse
should be reported by him to the King which might affect the fair
speaker otherwise than favourably.

Meantime, there was no fear of his again slumbering on his post. Each
passing breath of wind, which, finding its way through the open lattice,
waved the old arras, sounded like the approach of the fair object of
his expectation. He felt, in short, all that mysterious anxiety and
eagerness of expectation which is always the companion of love, and
sometimes hath a cons