rejoined Lempriere, and strode ponderously after the light-footed fool
who capered forth singing:

"Come hither, O come hither,
There's a bride upon her bed;
They have strewn her o'er with roses,
There are roses 'neath her head:
Life is love and tears and laughter,
But the laughter it is dead
Sing the way to the Valley, to the Valley!
Hey, but the roses they are red!"




CHAPTER IX

The next day at noon, as her Majesty had advised the Seigneur, De la
Foret was ushered into the presence. The Queen's eye quickened as she
saw him, and she remarked with secret pleasure the figure and bearing of
this young captain of the Huguenots. She loved physical grace and
prowess with a full heart. The day had almost passed when she would
measure all men against Leicester in his favour; and he, knowing this
clearly now, saw with haughty anxiety the gradual passing of his power,
and clutched futilely at the vanishing substance. Thus it was that he
now spent his strength in getting his way with the Queen in little
things. She had been so long used to take his counsel--in some part wise
and skilful--that when she at length did without it, or followed her own
mind, it became a fever with him to let no chance pass for serving his
own will by persuading her out of hers. This was why he had spent an