d I are one, and you make two,
Duchess."

"I spoke to the King," haughtily replied the Duchess, not deigning to
glance at Nell.

The King placed his hands upon his forehead in bewilderment.

"This is a question for the Prime Minister and sages of the realm in
council."

"There are but two chairs, Sire," continued Portsmouth, coldly.

"Two chairs!" exclaimed the Merry Monarch, aghast, as he saw the breach
hopelessly widening. "I am lost."

"That is serious, Sire," said Nell, sadly; and then her eye twinkled as
she suggested, "but perhaps we might make out with one, for the
Duchess's sake. I am so little."

She turned her head and laughed gaily, while she watched the Duchess's
face out of the corner of her eye.

"'Sheart," sighed the King, "I have construed grave controversies of
state in my time, but ne'er drew the line yet betwixt black eyes and
blue, brunette and blonde, when both were present. Another chair,
landlord! Come, my sweethearts; eat, drink and forget."

The King threw himself carelessly into a chair in the hope that, in meat
and drink, he might find peace.

"Aye," acquiesced Nell, who was already at work, irrespective of
ceremony, "eat, drink and forget! I prefer to quarrel after supper."

"I do not," said the Duchess, who still stood indignant in the centre of
the room.

Nell could scarce speak, for her mouthful; but she replied gaily, with a
French shrug, in imitation of the Duchess:

"Oh, very well! I have a solution. Let's play sphinx, Sire."

Charles looked up hopefully.

"Anything for peace," he exclaimed. "How is't?"

"Why," explained Nell, with the philosophical air of a learned doctor,
"some years before you and I thought much about the ways and means of
this wicked world, your Majesty, the Sphinx spent her leisure asking
people riddles; and if they could not answer, she ate them alive. Give
me some of that turbot. Don't stand on ceremony, Sire; for the Duchess
is waiting."

The King hastened to refill Nell's plate.

"Thank you," laughed the vixen; "that will do for now. Let the Duchess
propound a riddle from the depths of her subtle brain; and if I do not
fathom it upon the instant, Sire, 't is the Duchess's--not
Nell's--evening with the King."

"Odsfish, a great stake!" cried Charles. He arose with a serio-comic
air, much pleased at the turn things were taking.

"Don't be too confident, madame," ironically suggested the Duchess; "you
are cleverer in making riddles than