"Oh! no! no! not now; at first, perhaps, but not now. What I fear is
that if he remains silent much longer she will take matters in hand
and speak herself. I don't like to say that--it doesn't sound
well--but she is a princess, and it would be different with her from
what it would be with an ordinary girl; she might have to speak first,
or there might be no speaking from one who thought his position too
far beneath hers. She whose smallest desires drive her so, will never
forego so great a thing as the man she loves only for the want of a
word or two."

Then it was that Jane told me of the scene with the note, of the
little whispered confidence upon their pillows, and a hundred other
straws that showed only too plainly which way this worst of ill winds
was blowing--with no good in it for any one. Now who could have
foretold this? It was easy enough to prophesy that Brandon would learn
to love Mary, excite a passing interest, and come off crestfallen, as
all other men had done. But that Mary should love Brandon, and he
remain heart-whole, was an unlooked-for event--one that would hardly
have been predicted by the shrewdest prophet.

What Lady Jane said troubled me greatly, as it was but the
confirmation of my own fears. Her opportunity to know was far better
than mine, but I had seen enough to set me thinking.

Brandon, I believe, saw nothing of Mary's growing partiality at all.
He could not help but find her wonderfully attractive and interesting,
and perhaps it needed only the thought that she might love him, to
kindle a flame in his own breast. But at the time of our ride to
Windsor, Charles Brandon was not in love with Mary Tudor, however near
it he may unconsciously have been. He would whistle and sing, and was