"Most certainly," said the King. "I trust you will be rested
by dinner-time. Au revoir, my fair ambassadrice."

The woman nodded and smiled back at him brightly, and Louis
continued to look after her as she disappeared down the
corridor. He rubbed the back of his fingers across his lips,
and thoughtfully examined his finger-nails.

"I wonder," he said, after a pause, looking up at Barrat. The
Baron raised his eyebrows with a glance of polite
interrogation.

"I wonder if Kalonay dared to make love to her on the way
down."

The Baron's face became as expressionless as a death-mask, and
he shrugged his shoulders in protest.

"--Or did she make love to Kalonay?" the King insisted,
laughing gently. "I wonder now. I do not care to know, but I
wonder."

According to tradition the Kalonay family was an older one
than that of the House of Artois, and its name had always been
the one next in importance to that of the reigning house. The
history of Messina showed that different members of the
Kalonay family had fought and died for different kings of
Artois, and had enjoyed their favor and shared their reverses
with equal dignity, and that they had stood like a rampart