‘We need no introduction, cousin,’ she said, giving a hand to be saluted.  ’I knew you instantly.  It is the old face of Chateau Leurre, only gone up so high and become so handsome.’

‘Cousins,’ thought he.  ’Well, it makes things easier! but what audacity to be so much at her ease, when Lucy would have sunk into the earth with shame.’  His bow had saved him the necessity of answering in words, and the lady continued: 

‘And Madame votre mere.  Is she well?  She was very good to me.’

Berenger did not think that kindness to Eustacie had been her chief perfection, but he answered that she was well and sent her commendations, which the young lady acknowledged by a magnificent curtsey.  ‘And as beautiful as ever?’ she asked.

‘Quite as beautiful,’ he said, ‘only somewhat more embonpoint.’

‘Ah!’ she said, smiling graciously, and raising her splendid eyes to his face, ’I understand better what that famous beauty was now, and the fairness that caused her to be called the Swan.’

It was so personal that the colour rushed again into his cheek.  No one had ever so presumed to admire him; and with a degree gratified and surprised, and sensible more and more of the extreme beauty of the lady, there was a sort of alarm about him as if this were the very fascination he had been warned against, and as if she were casting a net about him, which, wife as she was, it would be impossible to him to break.

‘Nay, Monsieur,’ she laughed, ’is a word from one so near too much for your modesty?  Is it possible that no one has yet told you of your good mien?  Or do they not appreciate Greek noses and blue eyes in the land of fat Englishmen?  How have you ever lived en province? Our princes are ready to hang themselves at the thought of being in such banishment, even at court—­indeed, Monsieur has contrived to transfer the noose to M. d’Alengon.  Have you been at court, cousin?’

‘I have been presented to the Queen.’

She then proceeded to ask questions about the chief personages with a rapid intelligence that surprised him as well as alarmed him, for he felt more and more in the power of a very clever as well as beautiful woman, and the attraction she exercised made him long the more to escape; but she smiled and signed away several cavaliers who would have gained her attention.  She spoke of Queen Mary of Scotland, then in the fifth years of her captivity, and asked if he did not feel bound to her service by having been once her partner.  Did not he remember that dance?

‘I have heard my mother speak of it far too often to forget it,’ said Berenger, glowing again for her who could speak of that occasion without a blush.

‘You wish to gloss over your first inconstancy, sir,’ she said, archly; but he was spared from further reply by Philip Sidney’s coming to tell him that the Ambassador was ready to return home.  He took leave with an alacrity that redoubled his courtesy so much that he desired to be commended to his cousin Diane, whom he had not seen.