Wogan bowed to O'Toole's wisdom and took back the snuff-box. "I will not
forget to promise it," said he.

"But here's another point," said Gaydon. "Her Highness, the Princess's
mother, insists that a woman shall attend upon her daughter, and where
shall we find a woman with the courage and the strength?"

"I have thought of that," said Wogan. "Misset has a wife. By the
luckiest stroke in the world Misset took a wife this last spring."

There was at once a complete silence. Gaydon stared into the fire,
O'Toole looked with intense interest at the ceiling, Misset buried his
face in his hands. Wogan was filled with consternation. Was Misset's
wife dead? he asked himself. He had spoken lightly, laughingly, and he
went hot and cold as he recollected the raillery of his words. He sat in
his chair shocked at the pain which he had caused his friend. Moreover,
he had counted surely upon Mrs. Misset.

Then Misset raised his head from his hands and in a trembling voice he
said slowly, "My boy would only live to serve his King. Why should he
not serve his King before he lives? My wife will say the like."

There was a depth of quiet feeling in his words which Wogan would never
have expected from Misset; and the words themselves were words which he
felt no man, no king, however much beloved, however generous to his
servants, had any right to expect. They took Wogan's breath away, and
not Wogan's only, but Gaydon's and O'Toole's, too. A longer silence than
before followed upon them. The very simplicity with which they had been
uttered was startling, and made those three men doubt at the first
whether they had heard aright.