"Nell Gwyn!" cried the d.u.c.h.ess, interrupting; and she started violently.

"With oaths, mountains high," continued Nell, with pleasurable harshness, "that his lips were only for her."

The d.u.c.h.ess stood speechless, quivering from top to toe.

Nell herself swaggered carelessly across the room, muttering mischievously, as she watched the d.u.c.h.ess from the corner of her eye: "Methinks that speech went home."

"He kissed her in your presence?" gasped Portsmouth, anxiously following her.

"I was not far off, dear d.u.c.h.ess," was the quizzical reply.

"You saw the kiss?"

"No," answered Nell, dryly, and she could scarce contain her merriment.

"I--I--felt the shock."

Before she had finished the sentence, the King appeared in the doorway.

His troubled spirit had led him to return, to speak further with the d.u.c.h.ess regarding the purport of the treaties. He had the good of his people at heart, and he was not a little anxious in mind lest he had been over-hasty in signing such weighty articles without a more careful reading. He stopped short as he beheld, to his surprise, the Irish spark Adair in earnest converse with his hostess.

"I hate Nell Gwyn," he overheard the d.u.c.h.ess say.

"Is't possible?" interrogated Nell, with wondering eyes.

The King caught this utterance as well.

"In a pa.s.sion over Nelly?" reflected he. "I'd sooner face Cromwell's soldiers at Boscobel! All hail the oak!"

His Majesty's eye saw with a welcome the spreading branches of the monarch of the forest, outlined on the tapestry; and, with a sigh of relief, he glided quickly behind it and, joining a group of maskers, pa.s.sed into an anteroom, quite out of ear-shot.

"Most strange!" continued Nell, wonderingly. "Nell told me but yesterday that Portsmouth was charming company--but a small eater."

"'Tis false," cried the d.u.c.h.ess, and her brow clouded at the unpleasant memory of the meeting at Ye Blue Boar. "I never met the swearing orange-wench."

"Ods-pitikins!" acquiesced Nell, woefully. "Nell's oaths are bad enough for men."

"Masculine creature!" spitefully e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the d.u.c.h.ess.

"Verily, quite masculine--of late," said Nell, demurely, giving a significant tug at her boot-top.

"A vulgar player," continued the indignant d.u.c.h.ess, "loves every lover who wears gold lace and tosses coins."

"Nay; 'tis false!" denied Nell, sharply.

The d.u.c.h.ess looked up, surprised.

Nell was all obeisance in an instant.

"Pardon, dear hostess, a thousand pardons," she prayed; "but I have some reason to know you misjudge Mistress Nell. With all her myriad faults, she never loved but one."

"You seem solicitous for her good name, dear Beau?" suggested Portsmouth, suspiciously.

"I am solicitous for the name of all good women," promptly explained Nell, who was rarely caught a-napping, "or I would be unworthy of their s.e.x--I mean their friendship."

The d.u.c.h.ess seemed satisfied with the explanation.

"Dear Beau, what do the cavaliers see in that horrid creature?" archly asked the d.u.c.h.ess, contemptuous of this liking of the stronger s.e.x.

"Alack-a-day, we men, you know," replied Nell, boastfully, "well--the best of us make mistakes in women."

"Are you mistaken?" questioned Portsmouth, coyly.

"What?" laughed Nell, in high amus.e.m.e.nt. "I love Nelly? Nay, d.u.c.h.ess,"

and her voice grew tender, "I adore but one!"

"And she?" asked the hostess, encouraging the youth's apparently awakening pa.s.sion.

"How can you ask?" said Nell, with a deep sigh, looking adoringly into Portsmouth's eyes and almost embracing her.

"Do you not fear?" inquired Portsmouth, well pleased.

"Fear what?" questioned Nell.

"My wrath," said Portsmouth.

"Nay, more, thy love!" sighed Nell, meaningly, a.s.suming a true lover's dejected visage.

"My love!" cried Portsmouth, curiously.

"Aye," again sighed Nell, more deeply still; "for it is hopeless."

"Try," said the d.u.c.h.ess, almost resting her head upon Nell's shoulder.

"I am doing my best," said Nell, her eyes dancing through wistful lashes, as she embraced in earnest the d.u.c.h.ess's graceful figure and held it close.

"Do you find it hopeless?" asked Portsmouth, returning the embrace.

"Until you trust me," replied Nell, sadly. She shook her curls, then fondly pleaded: "Give me the secrets of your brain and heart, and then I'll know you love me."

The hostess smiled and withdrew from the embrace. Nell stood the picture of forlorn and hopeless love.

"Nay," laughed Portsmouth, consolingly, "they would sink a ship."

"One would not," still pleaded Nell, determined at all odds to have the packet.

"One!" The d.u.c.h.ess's eyes fell unconsciously upon the papers which she had bewitched from the King and which lay so near her heart. She started first with fear; and then her countenance a.s.sumed a thoughtful cast.

There was no time now for delay. The papers must be sent immediately.

The King might return and retract. Many a battle, she knew, had been lost after it had been won.