“In which case your Majesty will leave no more notes for me in public,” answered Frances.  And the king’s choice lay between taking offence and looking upon the affair as a jest.  He was too far gone in love to take offence, so he chose to laugh.

On another occasion, at the queen’s ball, the king asked Frances to walk out to the garden with him.

“It is dark, your Majesty, and I fear the dark,” she replied.  “Let us walk there in the daytime, so that every one may see how graciously my king honors me.”

He could not coax her out, so he said:  “Very well, my prudish Miss Solomon.  Have your way and break my heart.”

“To do either would please me,” she retorted.  “I like to have my own way, and there are few women who would not be delighted to break a handsome king’s heart.”

Frances having captured the king, every other man at court was her admirer.  She could have had her choice of a husband from among the noblest and richest men of the land, but she showed no one especial favor.  If one imagined that she smiled with marked graciousness on him, he soon learned that others were equally fortunate, and after a time each accepted his smile from her and took it for granted that his failure to receive greater favor was because of the king’s success.  All praised her discretion, though many believed that she was concealing adroitly what she would not have the world suspect.  With all her circumspection, it soon became the common talk at court that she was the king’s new favorite, though there was no reason given for the rumor save the belief that the king was not to be resisted.

* * * * *

The Duchess of York and I knew the truth concerning Frances, but all Westminster and London talked of the new star at Whitehall who was outshining Castlemain, Nell Gwynn, Stuart, and the host of other luminaries who had scintillated with scandal ever since the king’s return to Britain’s throne.

One morning, shortly after the king’s last-mentioned conversation with Frances, she met Nell Gwynn in the palace garden, and was surprised when Nelly addressed her as “Little Solomon.”

“Where did you learn the name?” asked Frances.

“From its author, the king,” answered Nell.  “Come home with me and I’ll tell you all about it.”

They took Nell’s barge and went to Westminster water stairs, where they walked across the park to her house in Pell Mell.

Frances cordially hated Lady Castlemain and the king’s other brazen friends, but, after having met Nelly several times, she had learned to love the sweet, profane, ignorant girl because, despite her apparently evil life, there was honesty, kindliness, and truth in Nelly’s heart.

When the two young women were seated in Nelly’s cozy parlor, she began to open her heart to Frances.

“Yes, the king told me how he invited you to go to the garden with him one evening, and how he dubbed you ‘Little Solomon’ when you refused.”