care to keep my first gift?" she pouted.

"Your gift? _May_ I then keep it?" he asked delighted.

"In exchange for the ring you wear," she replied, and he laid it in her
hand.

She examined with curiosity the device engraved upon the seal, a
gauntleted hand holding a lance in rest.

"Essex gave me that ring," he said thoughtlessly, for he was too excited
to measure his own words. "I value it, not because I have a right to the
arms it bears, but because he thought me a true knight errant eager for
any enterprise of honour and gallantry."

"Essex gave it. Then you are not Essex?" she asked smiling.

"'T was but a slip of the tongue," he replied confusedly. "It was the
King of France who presented it to me when I joined him with the English
auxiliaries at the siege of Rouen. We were much in each other's company,
not only in the main business of fighting, but in hawking and hunting in
the neighbourhood. It was the enemy's country, and this gave zest to our
escapades." He spoke rapidly but he could not distract her attention
from his inadvertent admission.

"Yes," she commented thoughtfully, "I have heard that you were friends
and comrades in many a wild adventure. Tell me more of the King, since
you of all others should know him best."

[Illustration: _Neurdein_

Henri IV. receiving the portrait of Marie de Medici

P. P. Rubens

From the series of paintings ordered by her for the Palace of the
Luxembourg]

"I know, dear lady, that he loves you."

"How can that be since he has never seen me?"

"Love enters the heart through many strange portals, and Henry of
Navarre knows you better than you suspect. Your portrait sent him by
your uncle is engraved upon his heart. Love gives a mysterious power of
second sight, and I doubt not that the King of France sees you at this
moment even as I do, and that Marie de' Medici is for him as for me the
embodiment of all womanly perfection."

"The Grand Duchess is approaching," she said in a low voice, "and Henry
of Navarre is a forbidden topic--talk of anything else--talk of art."

The subject was apropos, for they were in the garden and Ferdinando's
collection of masterpieces was all about them, but the Grand Duchess had
caught his closing phrase.

"Who is it," she asked drily, "who has the honour of being the
embodiment of the Earl of Essex's ideal of womanly perfection?"

"The Medicean Venus," Brandilancia replied unhesitatingly, with a wave
of the hand which took