There it was:  the full-blown spirit of conquest, strong even in a love-full heart.  God breathed into Adam the breath of life; but into Eve he breathed the love of conquest, and it has been growing stronger in the hearts of her daughters with each recurring generation.

“How about John?” I asked.

“Oh, John?” she answered, throwing her head contemplatively to one side.  “He is amply able to protect his own interests.  I could not be really untrue to him if I wished to be.  It is I who am troubled on the score of infidelity.  John will be with the most beautiful queen—­” She broke off in the midst of her sentence, and her face became clouded with an expression of anger and hatred.  “God curse her!  I wish she were dead, dead, dead.  There! you know how I feel toward your English-French-Scottish beauty.  Curse the mongrel—­” She halted before the ugly word she was about to use; but her eyes were like glowing embers, and her cheeks were flushed by the heat of anger.

“Did you not promise me, Dorothy, that you would not again allow yourself to become jealous of Queen Mary?” I asked.

“Yes, I promised, but I cannot prevent the jealousy, and I do not intend to try.  I hate her, and I love to hate her.”

“Why should you hate her?” I asked.  “If John remains true to you, there is certainly no cause for you to hate any one.  If he should be untrue to you, you should hate him.”

“Hate him?” she exclaimed.  “That, indeed, is pretty reasoning.  If he should be untrue to me, I should of course hate her.  I could not hate him.  I did not make myself love him.  I would never have been so great a fool as to bring that pain upon myself intentionally.  I suppose no girl would deliberately make herself love a man and bring into her heart so great an agony.  I feel toward John as I do, because I must; and I hate your Scottish mongrel because I must.  I tell you, Malcolm, when she comes to Rutland, if I hear of her trying any of her wanton tricks on John there will be trouble—­mark my words!”

“I ask you to promise me this, Dorothy:  that you will do nothing concerning John and Queen Mary without first speaking to me.”

She paced across the room angrily.  “I promise you nothing, Malcolm, save that I shall not allow that woman to come between John and me.  That I promise you, on my oath.”

Dorothy continued to shed her luminous smiles on Leicester, though she was careful not to shine in the queen’s presence.  My lord was dazzled by the smiles, and continually sought opportunities to bask in their dangerous light.  As a result of this smiling and basking the great London heart-breaker was soon helplessly caught in the toils of Doll, the country maiden.  She played him as an angler plays a trout.  The most experienced court coquette could not have done the part better than did this girl, whose knowledge of the subject was wholly intuitive, for her life had all been spent amid the green hills and groves of Derbyshire.  She so managed the affair that her father should see enough of Leicester’s preference to keep alive in Sir George’s mind the hope for the “Leicester possibility.”  Those words had become with her a phrase slyly to play upon.