Curious as to what so enthralled the stranger the man of the ink-horn tiptoed behind him, read the t.i.tle over his shoulder, and laughed aloud.

Brandilancia surprised, laid down the volume and demanded the cause of this demonstration.

"Pardon me, Signor," replied the secretary, "but I could not refrain, your absorption pays me a great compliment for I am the author of that book."

"You, sir?" exclaimed the half incredulous reader.

"I, Celio Malespini, Secretary to his Excellency, the Grand Duke, a man of letters who has tried his quill in sundry other fields, as well."

"Then, Signor Malespini, accept my congratulations, for this story of the company of the Calza of Venice is one of the merriest I have ever read, and makes me eager to see their festival. Have you written other books as entertaining?"

"I have as yet written no others," replied Celio, flattered and wholly won by the stranger's praise, "but since you care for my poor efforts I can lay before your worship those of other authors more worthy of your attention."

From inconspicuous nooks and corners he dragged them forth and piled them before the appreciative Brandilancia, who forgot all else until a servant announced that his hostesses would receive him in the grand salon a half hour before the hour of dining.

Even then he would have turned again to the fascinating volumes had not the valet's added information that the luggage of the Signor was in his room reminded him that dinner in such a house was a function and not simply an opportunity for absorbing the provender necessary to sustain life.

Fortunately, Brandilancia was an accomplished actor as well as writer, and his theatrical experience had taught him to make quick changes not only of costume, but of mental points of view and characteristics, and Ess.e.x's wardrobe became him no more than the grace and manner of the gallant young n.o.bleman which he a.s.sumed with equal ease.

The transformation effected within the next hour was even deeper than this, for as his eyes met those of Marie de' Medici he knew that here, either for good or evil, was a woman destined to exert a compelling influence upon his life.

It was not love, he told himself, for he was on his guard against that pa.s.sion. She did not impress him as beautiful. Her eyes were overbold and searching but cold; but her bearing arrogant at first, softened as the days went by into a frank comradeship, and he discovered that she possessed a cultured and an appreciative mind.

Hitherto Brandilancia had hidden a sensitive heart craving the sympathy that no woman had ever given him, under a gay and sportive exterior which made him a prince of good fellows, a man's man, and a loyal lover of his comrades, though they were far from appreciating his genius and his aims. But every serious conversation held with his young hostess confirmed him in his delusion that he had found a friend capable of understanding him. That she did not as yet wholly do so was the fault of his cursed disguise, which confused her perceptions of his real character with preconceived ideas of Ess.e.x. He longed to reveal himself to her, and did so to a greater degree than he realised.

Especially was this the case upon one memorable morning when, piqued that he should spend so much time in the library, she had followed him to that retreat.

She had found him absorbed in Luigi da Porto's novel _La Giulietta_, "a pitiable history that occurred at Verona in the time of Bartolommeo Scala," and she watched him slyly for some minutes amused by his preoccupation before interrupting his feast.

"Ah!" she exclaimed at length in pleased surprise, "you have chanced upon my favourite of all the books in my uncle's library. How many tears have I shed for these poor lovers but chiefly because I knew no Romeo so brave and n.o.ble and handsome to tempt me to die for him, or so devoted as to die for me. That was when I was a child of ten, my lord. I have learned since that such love exists only in novels, and have ceased to cry for it."

"You are very cynical, sweet lady," he replied, "and unkind to the novelists, whom I hold in worshipful esteem."

"And I also esteem them. It is precisely because the life they tell of is so different from my own, in which nothing ever happens, that a book-cover is for me a magic door by whose opening I escape out of the unendurable present. Even more than the novels do I love the plays, and to see them acted is better than to read them, best of all it must be to act in one. Ah! that would indeed be like living another life."

"True, dear lady," he answered eagerly, "but there is a form of diversion which to my mind is the most fascinating of all, and that is the writing of a drama, for in so doing we create a little world of our own, and control the destinies of the men and women whom we bring into being."

She shrugged her shoulders. "But I care only to be the author of my own role."

"And what," he asked, "would you choose that role to be?"

"I would be a Princess beloved by the King of the greatest nation in the world. Beloved, mark you, not bargained for, but sought out personally by the King who should love me for myself alone, a manifestly impossible plot even for a play."

"On the contrary, 't is a good one. Let us collaborate now in the planning of such a scheme. Let us suppose that for political reasons the King could not come in his proper person, but having learned to love you from report, were to seek you out incognito. Let us also imagine him so happy as to win your love. Would you be capable of the devotion which you demand of him?"

"Would I wed such a King whom I had learned to love, though in disguise?

Most certainly."

"Ah! dear lady, you wilfully disregard the point I make. Would you wed this true lover, not knowing that he was a King? Let me put it still more strongly. Would you give yourself to the _man_ you loved knowing that he was not of royal birth?"

"Ah! that is a different question; but I answer yes, for I am certain that my intuitions are so true that I could never love a man who was not in every sense a King."

He smiled indulgently. "So be it, we will write such a drama and show the world how true love pierces all disguise, and knowing its own, challenges all dangers."

She listened eagerly, but she attributed an interpretation which he had not intended to his perfectly simple suggestion. Placing her own personality out of the question was impossible for one so absorbed in self as this egoistic young creature. If Henry of Navarre were but like his Amba.s.sador how easy it would be to love him! and suddenly it flashed through her mind that they were indeed one and the same. What other signification could be placed upon this supposit.i.tious drama which they were to evolve together?

Intrigue ran in her blood and distorted her perceptions. Transparent frankness was incomprehensible to her, and it appealed to her romantic imagination that the King of France should come like the hero of some wonder-tale disguised as his own envoy extraordinary to see and woo his princess.

Had she confided this wild idea to the experienced Malespini or to her companion, the dwarf Leonora, whose shrewd intellect was out of all proportion to her stunted body, she might easily have been disabused of her error; but with an overweening confidence in the accuracy of her own judgment she determined to weigh every sentence uttered by the man who purported to be the Earl of Ess.e.x and draw her own conclusions as to his ident.i.ty.

To a mind preconvinced, proofs were not wanting. Brandilancia, fancying that the little fan had fallen from the hand of Marie de' Medici by accident, naively offered to return it. Her face clouded. "Then you do not care to keep my first gift?" she pouted.

"Your gift? _May_ I then keep it?" he asked delighted.

"In exchange for the ring you wear," she replied, and he laid it in her hand.

She examined with curiosity the device engraved upon the seal, a gauntleted hand holding a lance in rest.

"Ess.e.x gave me that ring," he said thoughtlessly, for he was too excited to measure his own words. "I value it, not because I have a right to the arms it bears, but because he thought me a true knight errant eager for any enterprise of honour and gallantry."

"Ess.e.x gave it. Then you are not Ess.e.x?" she asked smiling.

"'T was but a slip of the tongue," he replied confusedly. "It was the King of France who presented it to me when I joined him with the English auxiliaries at the siege of Rouen. We were much in each other's company, not only in the main business of fighting, but in hawking and hunting in the neighbourhood. It was the enemy's country, and this gave zest to our escapades." He spoke rapidly but he could not distract her attention from his inadvertent admission.

"Yes," she commented thoughtfully, "I have heard that you were friends and comrades in many a wild adventure. Tell me more of the King, since you of all others should know him best."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Neurdein_

Henri IV. receiving the portrait of Marie de Medici

P. P. Rubens

From the series of paintings ordered by her for the Palace of the Luxembourg]

"I know, dear lady, that he loves you."

"How can that be since he has never seen me?"

"Love enters the heart through many strange portals, and Henry of Navarre knows you better than you suspect. Your portrait sent him by your uncle is engraved upon his heart. Love gives a mysterious power of second sight, and I doubt not that the King of France sees you at this moment even as I do, and that Marie de' Medici is for him as for me the embodiment of all womanly perfection."

"The Grand d.u.c.h.ess is approaching," she said in a low voice, "and Henry of Navarre is a forbidden topic--talk of anything else--talk of art."

The subject was apropos, for they were in the garden and Ferdinando's collection of masterpieces was all about them, but the Grand d.u.c.h.ess had caught his closing phrase.

"Who is it," she asked drily, "who has the honour of being the embodiment of the Earl of Ess.e.x's ideal of womanly perfection?"

"The Medicean Venus," Brandilancia replied unhesitatingly, with a wave of the hand which took in that famous statue and also the lady at his side.

The Grand d.u.c.h.ess sniffed, she was silenced but not deceived, and she remained at her niece's side through the remainder of the afternoon.