"I can't believe that," responded Brandon, looking at Jane with a softening glance quite too admiring and commendatory to suit me; for I was a jealous little devil.

The eyebrows went up again.

"Oh! you think she doesn't? Well, in truth, Master Brandon, there is one failing that can not be laid at your door; you are no flatterer."

For answer Brandon laughed, and that gave us the cue, and away we went in a rippling chorus, all about nothing. Some persons may call our laughter foolish, but there are others who consider it the height of all wisdom. St. George! I'd give my Garter for just one other laugh like that; for just one other hour of youth's dancing blood and glowing soul-warmth; of sweet, unconscious, happy heart-beat and paradise-creating joy in everything.

After a few minutes of gay conversation, in which we all joined, Mary asked: "What shall we do? Will one of you suggest something?"

Jane sat there looking so demure you would have thought mischief could not live within a league of her, but those very demure girls are nearly always dangerous. She said, oh! so innocently:

"Would you like to dance? If so, I will play." And she reached for her lute, which was by her side.

"Yes, that will be delightful. Master Brandon, will you dance with me?" asked the princess, with a saucy little laugh, her invitation meaning so much more to three of us than to Brandon. Jane and I joined in the laugh, and when Mary clapped her hands that set Brandon off, too, for he thought it the quaintest, prettiest little gesture in the world, and was all unconscious that our laugh was at his expense.

Brandon did not answer Mary's invitation--the fit of laughter had probably put it out of his mind--so she, evidently anxious to win or lose her wager at once, again asked him if he danced.

"Oh, pardon me. Of course. Thank you." And he was on his feet beside her chair in an instant ready for the dance. This time the girl's laugh, though equally merry, had another tone, for she knew she had lost.

Out they stepped upon the polished floor, he holding her hand in his, awaiting the pause in the music to take the step. I shall never forget the sight of those two standing there together--Mary, dark-eyed and glowing; Brandon, almost rosy, with eyes that held the color of a deep spring sky, and a wealth of flowing curls crowning his six feet of perfect manhood, strong and vigorous as a young lion. Mary, full of beauty-curves and graces, a veritable Venus in her teens, and Brandon, an Apollo, with a touch of Hercules, were a complement each to the other that would surely make a perfect one.

When the music started, off they went, heel and toe, bow and courtesy, a step forward and a step back, in perfect time and rhythm--a poem of human motion. Could Brandon dance? The princess had her answer in the first ten steps. Nothing could be more graceful than Brandon's dancing, unless it were Mary's. Her slightest movement was grace itself. When she would throw herself backward in thrusting out her toe, and then swing forward with her head a little to one side, her uplifted arm undulating like the white neck of a swan,--for her sleeve, which was slit to the shoulder, fell back and left it bare,--she was a sight worth a long journey to see. And when she looked up to Brandon with a laugh in her brown eyes, and a curving smile just parting her full, red lips, that a man would give his very luck to--but I had better stop.

"Was there ever a goodlier couple?" I asked Jane, by whose side I sat.

"Never," she responded as she played, and, strange to say, I was jealous because she agreed with me. I was jealous because I feared it was Brandon's beauty to which she referred. That I thought would naturally appeal to her. Had he been less handsome, I should perhaps have thought nothing of it, but I knew what my feelings were toward Mary, and I judged, or rather misjudged, Jane by myself. I supposed she would think of Brandon as I could not help thinking of Mary. Was anything in heaven or earth ever so beautiful as that royal creature, dancing there, daintily holding up her skirts with thumb and first finger, just far enough to show a distracting little foot and ankle, and make one wish he had been born a sheep rather than a sentient man who had to live without Mary Tudor? Yet, strange as it may seem, I was really and wholly in love with Jane; in fact, I loved no one but Jane, and my feeling of intense admiration for Mary was but a part of man's composite inconstancy.

A woman--G.o.d bless her--if she really loves a man, has no thought of any other; one at a time is all-sufficient; but a man may love one woman with the warmth of a simoon, and at the same time feel like a good healthy south wind toward a dozen others. That is the difference between a man and a woman--the difference between the good and the bad. One average woman has enough goodness in her to supply an army of men.

Mary and Brandon went on dancing long after Jane was tired of playing.

It was plain to see that the girl was thoroughly enjoying it. They kept up a running fire of small talk, and laughed, and smiled, and bowed, and courtesied, all in perfect time and grace.

It is more difficult than you may think, if you have never tried, to keep up a conversation and dance La Galliard, at the same time--one is apt to balk the other--but Brandon's dancing was as easy to him as walking, and, although so small a matter, I could see it raised him vastly in the estimation of both girls.

"Do you play triumph?" I heard Mary ask in the midst of the dancing.

"Oh! yes," replied Brandon, much to my delight, as the princess threw a mischievous, knowing glance over her shoulder to see if I had heard.

She at once saw I had, and this, of course, settled the wager.

"And," continued Brandon, "I also play the new game, 'honor and ruff,' which is more interesting than triumph."

"Oh! do you?" cried Mary. "That will more than compensate for the loss of my ten crowns. Let us sit down at once; I have been wishing to learn, but no one here seems to know it. In France, they say, it is the only game. I suppose there is where you learned it? Perhaps you know their new dances too! I have heard they are delightful!"

"Yes, I know them," replied Brandon.

"Why, you are a perfect treasure; teach me at once. How now, Master of the Dance? Here is your friend outdoing you in your own line."

"I am glad to hear it," I returned.

"If Lady Jane will kindly play some lively air, written in the time of 'The Sailor La.s.s,' I will teach the Lady Mary the new dance," said Brandon.

Jane threw one plump little knee over the other and struck up "The Sailor La.s.s." After she had adjusted the playing to Brandon's suggestion, he stepped deliberately in front of Mary, and, taking her right hand in his left, encircled her waist with his right arm. The girl was startled at first and drew away. This nettled Brandon a little, and he showed it plainly.

"I thought you wished me to teach you the new dance?" he said.

"I do, but--but I did not know it was danced that way," she replied with a fluttering little laugh, looking up into his face with a half shy, half apologetic manner, and then dropping her lashes before his gaze.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Oh, well!" said Brandon, with a Frenchman's shrug of the shoulders, and then moved off as if about to leave the floor.

"But is that really the way you--they dance it? With your--their arm around my--a lady's waist?"

"I should not have dared venture upon such a familiarity otherwise,"

answered Brandon, with a glimmer of a smile playing around his lips and hiding in his eyes.

Mary saw this shadowy smile, and said: "Oh! I fear your modesty will cause you hurt; I am beginning to believe you would dare do anything you wish. I more than half suspect you are a very bold man, notwithstanding your smooth, modest manner."

"You do me foul wrong, I a.s.sure you. I am the soul of modesty, and grieve that you should think me bold," said Brandon, with a broadening smile.

Mary interrupted him. "Now, I do believe you are laughing at me--at my prudery, I suppose you think it."

Mary would rather have been called a fool than a prude, and I think she was right. Prudery is no more a sign of virtue than a wig is of hair. It is usually put on to hide a bald place.

The princess stood irresolute for a moment, in evident hesitation and annoyance.

"You are grieving because I think you bold! And yet you stand there laughing at me to my face. I think so more than ever now. I know it.

Oh, you make me angry! Don't! I do not like persons who anger me and then laugh at me." This turned Brandon's smile into a laugh which he could not hold back.

Mary's eyes shot fire, and she stamped her foot, exclaiming: "Sir, this goes beyond all bounds; I will not tolerate your boldness another moment." I thought she was going to dismiss him, but she did not. The time had come when he or she must be the master.

It was a battle royal between the forces on the floor, and I enjoyed it and felt that Brandon would come out all right.

He said good-humoredly: "What, shall you have all the laugh in your sleeve at my expense? Do you expect to bring me here to win a wager for you, made on the a.s.sumption of my stupidity and lack of social accomplishments, and then complain when it comes my turn to laugh? I think I am the one who should be offended, but you see I am not."

"Caskoden, did you tell him?" demanded Mary, evidently referring to the wager.

"He said not a word of it," broke in Brandon, answering for me; "I should have been a dullard, indeed, not to have seen it myself after what you said about the loss of your ten crowns; so let us cry quits and begin again."

Mary reluctantly struck her flag.

"Very well, I am willing," she said laughingly; "but as to your boldness, I still insist upon that; I forgive you, however, this time." Then, half apologetically, "After all, it is not such a grievous charge to make. I believe it never yet injured any man with women; they rather like it, I am afraid, however angry it makes them.

Don't they, Jane?"

Jane, of course, "did not know," so we all laughed, as usual, upon the slightest pretext, and Mary, that fair bundle of contradictions and quick transitions, stepped boldly up to Brandon, with her colors flying in her cheeks, ready for the first lesson in the new dance.

She was a little frightened at his arm around her waist, for the embrace was new to her--the first touch of man--and was shy and coy, though willing, being determined to learn the dance. She was an apt pupil and soon glided softly and gracefully around the room with unfeigned delight; yielding to the new situation more easily as she became accustomed to it.

This dance was livelier exercise than La Galliard, and Mary could not talk much for lack of breath. Brandon kept the conversation going, though, and she answered with glances, smiles, nods and monosyllables--a very good vocabulary in its way, and a very good way, too, for that matter.