"Your eminence," said Lady Nora, "we are now taught in England that
Queen Mary was not altogether proper."

"She had beauty, had she not?" asked the cardinal.

"Yes," replied Lady Nora.

"She was beheaded, was she not?" asked the cardinal.

"Yes," said Lady Nora, "and by a very plain woman."

"There you have it!" exclaimed the cardinal. "If Elizabeth had been
beautiful and Mary plain, Mary would have kept her head. It is sad to
see beautiful women lose their heads. It is sad to see you lose yours."

"Mine?" exclaimed Lady Nora, and she put her hands up to her hat-pins,
to reassure herself.

"Yes," said the cardinal, "I fear that it is quite gone."

Lady Nora looked at him with questioning eyes. "Yes," she said, "I must
have lost it, for I do not understand you, and I have not always been
dull."

"My dear lady," said the cardinal, "the Earl of Vauxhall was good enough
to pay me a visit this afternoon."

"Oh," exclaimed Lady Nora, clapping her hands, "if I only could have
been behind the curtains! What did he say?"