even of dislike and suspicion, by some fortuitous incident, which might
have chanced to two who had every impulse towards each other, not such
antagonisms as lay between Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and this
Huguenot refugee. She had every cue to hate hum. Each moment of her
life in England had been beset with peril because of him-peril to the
man she loved, therefore peril to herself. And yet, so various is the
nature of woman, that, while steering straitly by one star, she levies
upon the light of other stars. Faithful and sincere, yet loving power,
curious and adventurous, she must needs, without intention, without
purpose, stray into perilous paths.

As Leicester stepped suddenly into Angele's gaze, she was only, as it
were, conscious of a presence in itself alluring by virtue of the history
surrounding it. She was surprised out of an instinctive dislike, and the
cue she had to loathe him was for the moment lost.

Unconsciously, unintentionally, she smiled at him now, then, realising,
retreated, shrinking from him, her face averted. Man or woman had found
in Leicester the delicate and intrepid gamester, exquisite in the choice
of detail, masterful in the breadth of method. And now, as though his
whole future depended on this interview, he brought to bear a life-long
skill to influence her. He had determined to set the Queen against her.
He did not know--not even he--that she had saved the Queen's life on that
auspicious May Day when Harry Lee had fought the white knight Michel de
la Foret and halved the honours of the lists with him. If he had but
known that the Queen had hid from him this fact--this vital thing
touching herself and England, he would have viewed his future with a
vaster distrust. But there could be no surer sign of Elizabeth's growing
coldness and intended breach than that she had hid from him the dreadful
incident of the poisoned glove, and the swift execution of the would-be