[Pg 43]

His Eminence shrugged his shoulders very slightly, and turned the palms of his hands outwards. "Oh," he said, "if her Majesty is satisfied I am."

"M'dieu!" the Queen cried, with a spirt of anger—"what do you mean?" But she turned to the lady who held the dog, and took it from her. "It is the dog!" she said, her colour high. "Do you think that I do not know my own dog?" she continued. And she set the dog on its feet. She called it "Flore! Flore!" It turned to her and wagged its tail eagerly, and jumped upon her skirts, and licked her hand.

"Poor Flore!" said the Cardinal. "Flore!" It went to him.

"Certainly its name is Flore," he said: yet he continued to scan it with a puzzled eye. "It is the dog, I suppose. But it used to die at the word of command, I think?"

"What it did, it will do!" Monseigneur de Beauvais cried scornfully. "But I see that your Eminence was right in one thing you said."

The Cardinal bowed.

"That I should be envied!" the Bishop retorted, with a sneer. And he glanced round the circle. There was a slight though general titter; a great lady at the Queen's elbow laughed out.

"Flore," said the Queen, "die! Die, good dog. Do you hear, m'dieu! die!"[Pg 44]

[Pg 44]

But the dog only gazed into her Majesty's face with a spaniel's soft affectionate eyes, and wagged its tail; and though she cried to it again and again, and angrily, it made no attempt to obey. On that a deep-drawn breath ran round the circle; one looked at another; and there were raised eyebrows. A score of heads were thrust forward, and some who had seemed merry enough the moment before looked grave as mutes now.

"It used to bark for France and growl for Spain," the Cardinal continued in his softest voice. "One of the charmingest things, madam, I ever saw. Perhaps if your Majesty would try——"

"France!" the Queen cried imperiously; and she stamped on the floor. "France! France!"

But the dog only retreated, cowering and dismayed. From a distance it wagged its tail pitifully.

"France!" cried the Queen, almost with passion. The dog cowered.

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