been a small thing that a reckless young man had risked his life to say nothing of his honor, in her service, and got a very bad cut upon his head in the bargain. But Mistress Clerke was not like some other ladies of the court. She had heard of the gallantries of Monsieur Mornay, and had set him down as a woman-hunter and libertine—a type especially elected for her abomination. His recent attentions to the Countess of Shrewsbury and the engaging Mrs. Middleton were already the[12] common gossip of the court. She herself had seen this man, perfumed and frilled, flaunting himself in Hyde Park or the Mall with one or the other of his charmers, but the assurance which made him successful elsewhere only filled her with disgust. What the Englishwomen could see in such a fellow it was difficult for her to determine. He was certainly not over-handsome. What strength the face possessed she ascribed to boldness; what pride in the curve of the nose and lips—to arrogance; what sensitiveness and delicacy of molding in lip and chin—to puny aims and habits of fellows of his trade. She was a person who divined rapidly and with more or less inaccuracy, and so she had prepared herself thoroughly to dislike the man, even before his own presumption had heightened her prejudice. Mistress Barbara had first won and now held her position at court, not by a lavish display of her talents and charms, but by a nimble wit and unassailable character and sincerity, qualities of a particular value, because of their rarity. This was the reason she could discover no compliment in the[13] gallantry of Monsieur Mornay on Tower Wharf. For beneath the mask of his subservience she discovered a gleam of unbridled admiration, which, compliment though it might have been from another, from him was only an insult.

[12]

[13]

Several days of deliberation had brought no change in her spirit. She resolved, as she put the last dainty touches to her toilet, that if Monsieur Mornay again thrust his attentions upon her that night at the ball of the Duchess of Dorset, she would give him a word or two in public which should establish their personal relations for all time. And as she stood before her dressing-table, her mirror gave her back a reflection which justified her every jealous precaution. The candles shimmered upon the loveliest neck and arms in the world. The forehead was wide, white, and smooth, and her hair rippled back from her temples in a shower of gold and fell in a natural order which made the arts of fashion superfluous. Her cheeks glowed with a color which put to shame the rouge-pot in her toilet-closet. She was more like some tall 

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