“Oh! but that is not true.  Don’t you think you should have told him the truth, or have evaded it in some way?” asked Brandon, who was really a great lover of the truth, “when possible,” but who, I fear on this occasion, wished to appear more truthful than he really was.  If a man is to a woman’s taste, and she is inclined to him, he lays up great stores in her heart by making her think him good; and shameful impositions are often practiced to this end.

Mary flushed a little and answered, “I can’t help it.  You do not know.  Had I told Henry that we four had enjoyed such a famous time in my rooms he would have been very angry, and—­and—­you might have been the sufferer.”

“But might you not have compromised matters by going around the truth some way, and leaving the impression that others were of the party that evening?”

That was a mistake, for it gave Mary an opportunity to retaliate:  “The best way to go around the truth, as you call it, is by a direct lie.  My lie was no worse than yours.  But I did not stop to argue about such matters.  There is something else I wished to say.  I want to tell you that you have greatly pleased the king with the new dance.  Now teach him ‘honor and ruff’ and your fortune is made.  He has had some Jews and Lombards in of late to teach him new games at cards, but yours is worth all of them.”  Then, somewhat hastily and irrelevantly, “I did not dance the new dance with any other gentleman—­but I suppose you did not notice it,” and she was gone before he could thank her.

CHAPTER VI

A Rare Ride to Windsor

The princess knew her royal brother.  A man would receive quicker reward for inventing an amusement or a gaudy costume for the king than by winning him a battle.  Later in life the high road to his favor was in ridding him of his wife and helping him to a new one—­a dangerous way though, as Wolsey found to his sorrow when he sank his glory in poor Anne Boleyn.

Brandon took the hint and managed to let it be known to his play-loving king that he knew the latest French games.  The French Duc de Longueville had for some time been an honored prisoner at the English court, held as a hostage from Louis XII, but de Longueville was a blockhead, who could not keep his little black eyes off our fair ladies, who hated him, long enough to tell the deuce of spades from the ace of hearts.  So Brandon was taken from his duties, such as they were, and placed at the card table.  This was fortunate at first; for being the best player the king always chose him as his partner, and, as in every other game, the king always won.  If he lost there would soon be no game, and the man who won from him too frequently was in danger at any moment of being rated guilty of the very highest sort of treason.  I think many a man’s fall, under Henry VIII, was owing to the fact that he did not always allow the king to win in some trivial matter of game or joust.