o Myles, he would rather have waited a little
while longer until the lad was riper in years and experience, but the
opportunity was not to be lost. Young as he was, Myles must take
his chances against the years and grim experience of the Sieur de la
Montaigne. But it was also a part of the Earl's purpose that the King
and Myles should not be brought too intimately together just at that
time. Though every particular of circumstance should be fulfilled in the
ceremony, it would have been ruination to the Earl's plans to have the
knowledge come prematurely to the King that Myles was the son of
the attainted Lord Falworth. The Earl knew that Myles was a shrewd,
coolheaded lad; but the King had already hinted that the name was
familiar to his ears, and a single hasty answer or unguarded speech upon
the young knight's part might awaken him to a full knowledge. Such a
mishap was, of all things, to be avoided just then, for, thanks to the
machinations of that enemy of his father of whom Myles had heard so
much, and was soon to hear more, the King had always retained and still
held a bitter and rancorous enmity against the unfortunate nobleman.

It was no very difficult matter for the Earl to divert the King's
attention from the matter of the feast. His Majesty was very intent
just then upon supplying a quota of troops to the Dauphin, and the chief
object of his visit to Devlen was to open negotiations with the Earl
looking to that end. He was interested--much interested in Myles and in
the coming jousting in which the young warrior was to prove himself, but
he was interested in it by way of a relaxation from the other and more
engrossing matter. So, though he made some passing and half preoccupied
inquiry about the feast he was easily satisfied with the Earl's reasons
for not holding it: which were that he had arranged a consultation for
that morning in regard to the troops for the Dauphin, to which meeting
he had summoned a number of his own more important dependent nobles,
that the King himself needed repose and the hour or so of rest that
his barber-surgeon had ordered him to take after his mid-day meal; that
Father Thomas had laid upon Myles a petty penance--that for the first
three days of his knighthood he should eat his meals without meat and
in his own apartment--and various other reasons equally good and
sufficient. So the King was satisfied, and the feast was dispensed with.

The next morning had been set for the jous