“I thank your Majesty,” I answered, rising and bowing, “and feel sure you have done all that is needful to keep my cousin at court.  She has certain prudish standards which I fear are too easily shocked, and is as self-willed as—­well, as a beautiful woman—­”

“Ought to be,” interrupted the king, laughing and finishing my sentence.

I wanted him to suspect that his gallant speeches would be repeated to me, hoping that the knowledge might temper them.

After talking a moment longer with him, I asked permission to withdraw, and at once sought Frances.  When I found her in the parlor of the duchess, I drew her to one side and told her of my interview with the king.

“You have tamed the lion,” I said, “and you may accept the pension without harm to your sensitive dignity.  But please don’t make a fool of yourself again by taking such a matter seriously.  Keep your head, keep your heart, keep your temper, and thrive.  Lose either, and have the whole court laughing at you.  I’m sorry Hamilton is so fixed in your heart that you cannot dislodge him, but this good may grow out of the evil:  you may judge other men dispassionately.”

A great sigh was her only answer.

* * * * *

Frances took my advice, along with the king’s pension, and soon learned that as good wine needs no bush, so true virtue needs no defence.

A brief account of Frances’s triumphs and adventures at court is necessary before this history can be brought to the point of Hamilton’s return; that is, to the time when I knew he was in London.

Her first great triumph was over the heart of the king, to whose lovemaking she learned to listen and to smile; not the smile of assent, but of amusement.

Soon our august monarch became silly with love of the new beauty, and with her help often made himself ridiculous.  On one occasion, a few months after Frances’s installation as maid of honor, he left a love note in her muff which she pushed out at one end as she thrust her hand in at the other.  She was careful to do this little trick in such a manner that those who saw the king place the note in her muff should see it fall out.  It was picked up by an inquisitive soul, reached the hands of the “lampooners,” and appeared in biting verse in the next issue of the News Letter.

When the king complained to Frances of her ill-treatment of his note, she declared, with a great show of astonishment, that she had not seen it, which was literally true, since she had only felt it.  She said that it must have fallen to the ground as she took up her muff, and tried to make it appear that she was greatly disappointed.

“I would not slight so great an honor as a letter from my king,” she said demurely.

“No, no,” returned his Majesty, laughing.  “Our most devoted subject would not slight her king’s message.  I believe you did it intentionally.”