Berenger bowed assent.

‘Ah!  You English make good spouses,’ she said, with a smile.  ’Ever satisfied with home!  But, your Excellency,’ added she, turning to Walsingham, ’what stones would best please my good sister for the setting of the jewel my son would send her with his portrait?  He is all for emeralds, for the hue of hope; but I call it the colour of jealousy.’

Walsingham made a sign that Berenger had better retreat from hearing the solemn coquetting carried on by the maiden Queen through her gravest ambassadors.  He fell back, and remained watching the brilliant throng, trying in vain to discover the bright merry eyes and velvet cheek he remembered of old.  Presently a kind salutation interrupted him, and a gentleman who perceived him to be a stranger began to try to set him at ease, pointed out to him the handsome, foppishly-dressed Duke of Anjou, and his ugly, spiteful little brother of Alengon, then designated as Queen Elizabeth’s future husband, who was saying something to a lady that made her colour and bite her lips.  ‘Is that the younger Queen?’ asked Berenger, as his eye fell on a sallow, dark-complexioned, sad-looking little creature in deep mourning, and with three or four such stately-looking, black-robed, Spanish-looking duennas round her as to prove her to be a person of high consequence.

’That?  Oh no; that is Madame Catherine of Navarre, who has resided here ever since her mother’s death, awaiting her brother, our royal bridegroom.  See, here is the bride, Madame Marguerite, conversing with M. de Guise.’

Berenger paid but little heed to Marguerite’s showy but already rather coarse beauty, and still asked where was the young Queen Elizabeth of Austria.  She was unwell, and not in presence.  ’Ah! then,’ he said, ‘her ladies will not be here.’

‘That is not certain.  Are you wishing to see any one of them?’

‘I would like to see——­’ He could not help colouring till his cheeks rivaled the colour of his sword-knot.  ’I want just to know if she is here.  I know not if she be called Madame or Mademoiselle de Ribaumont.’

’The fair Ribaumont!  Assuredly; see, she is looking at you.  Shall I present you?’

A pair of exceedingly brilliant dark eyes were fixed on Berenger with a sort of haughty curiosity and half-recognition.  The face was handsome and brilliant, but he felt indignant at not perceiving a particle of a blush at encountering him, indeed rather a look of amusement at the deep glow which his fair complexion rendered so apparent.  He would fain have escaped from so public an interview, but her eye was upon him, and there was no avoiding the meeting.  As he moved nearer he saw what a beautiful person she was, her rich primrose-coloured dress setting off her brunette complexion and her stately presence.  She looked older than he had expected; but this was a hotbed where every one grew up early, and the expression and manner made him feel that an old intimacy was here renewed, and that they were no strangers.