"The King--as I thought!" whispered Nell. "Good lack; what shall I do with Adair? Plague on't, he'll be mad if I keep him waiting, and madder if I let him in. Where are your wits, Moll? Run for my gown; fly--fly!"

Moll hastened to do the bidding.

Nell rushed to the entry-door, in frantic agitation.

"The bolt sticks, Sire," she called, pretending to struggle with the door, hoping so to stay his Majesty until she should have time to dispose of poor Adair. "How can I get out of these braveries?" she then asked herself, tugging awkwardly at one part of the male attire and then at another. "I don't know which end of me to begin on first."

Moll re-entered the room with a bundle of pink in her arms, which turned out to be a flowing, silken robe, trimmed with lace.

"Here is the first I found," she said breathlessly.

Nell motioned to her nervously to put it upon the couch.

"Help me out of this coat," she pleaded woefully.

Moll took off the coat and then a.s.sisted Nell to circ.u.mscribe with the gown, from heels to head, her stunning figure, neatly encased in Adair's habit, which now consisted only of a jaunty shirt of white, gray breeches, shoes and stockings.

"Marry, I would I were a fairy with a magic wand; I could befuddle men's eyes easier," Nell lamented.

The King knocked again upon the door sharply.

"Patience, my liege," entreated Nell, drawing her gown close about her and muttering with personal satisfaction: "There, there; that hides a mult.i.tude of sins. The girdle, the girdle! Adair will not escape from this--if we can but keep him quiet; the rogue has a woman's tongue, and it will out, I fear."

She s.n.a.t.c.hed up a mirror and arranged her hair as best she could in the dim light, with the cries without resounding in her ears and with Moll dancing anxiously about her.

"Down with the door," threatened the King, impatiently. "The ram; the battering ram."

"I come, my love; I come," cried Nell, in agitation, fairly running to the door to open it, but stopping aghast as her eye caught over her shoulder the sad, telltale condition of the room.

"'Sdeath," she called in a stage-whisper to Moll; "under the couch with Adair's coat! Patience, Sire," she besought in turn the King. "Help me, Moll. How this lock has rusted--in the last few minutes. My sword!" she continued breathlessly to Moll. "My boots! My hat! My cloak!"

Moll, in her efforts to make the room presentable, was rushing hither and thither, first throwing Adair's coat beneath the couch as Nell commanded and firing the other evidences of his guilty presence, one behind one door and another behind another.

It was done.

Nell slipped the bolt and calmly took a stand in the centre of the room, drawing her flowing gown close about Adair's person. She was quite exhausted from the nervous strain, but her actress's art taught her the way to hide it. Moll, panting for breath, across the room, feigned composure as best she could.

The door opened and in strode the King and his followers.

"Welcome, royal comrades, welcome all!" said Nell, bowing graciously to her untimely visitors.

CHAPTER XVI

_Ods-pitikins, my own reflection!_

Upon the fine face of the King, as he entered Nell's drawing-room, was an expression of nervous bantering, not wholly unmixed with anxiety.

The slanderous Adair and his almost miraculous escape had not long weighed upon his Majesty's careless nature.

As he had not met Adair until that night or even heard of him, his heart had told him that the Irish roisterer could scarcely be a serious obstacle in the way of Nell's perfect faith, if, indeed, he had met Nell at all, which he doubted. His command to the guard to follow and overtake the youth had been more the command of the ruler than of the man. Despite himself, there had been something about the dainty peac.o.c.k he could not help but like; and the bold dash for the window, the disarming of the purse-proud Buckingham, who for many reasons displeased him, and the leap to the sward below, with the accompanying farewell, had especially delighted both his manhood and his sense of humour.

He had, therefore, dismissed Adair from his mind, except as a possible subject to banter Nell withal, or as a culprit to punish, if overtaken.

His restless spirit had chafed under the d.u.c.h.ess's lavish entertainment--for the best entertainment is dull to the lover whose sweetheart is absent--and he had turned instinctively from the ball to Nell's terrace, regardless of the hour and scarce noticing his constant attendants.

The night was so beautiful that their souls had found vent in song.

This serenade, however, had brought to Nell's window a wide-awake fellow, who had revealed himself in saucy talk; and the delighted cavaliers, in hope of fun, had charged jeeringly that they had outwitted the guard and had found Adair.

It was this that had brought the anxious look to the King's face; and, though his better judgment was still unchanged, the sight of the knave at the window, together with the suggestions of his merry followers, had cast a shadow of doubt for the moment upon his soul, and he had reflected that there was much that the Irish youth had said that could not be reconciled with that better judgment.

With a careless shrug, he had, therefore, taken up the jest of his lawless crew, which coincided with his own intended purpose, and had sworn that he would turn the household out of bed without regard to pretty protests or formality of warrant. He would raise the question forthwith, in jest and earnest, and worry Nell about the boaster.

"Scurvy entertainment," he began, with frowning brow.

"Yea, my liege," explained Nell, winsomely; "you see--I did not expect the King so late, and so was unpresentable."

"It is the one you do not expect," replied Charles, dryly, "who always causes the trouble, Nell."

"We were in bed, Sire," threw in Moll, thinking to come to the rescue of her mistress.

"Marry, truly," said Nell, catching at the cue, "--asleep, Sire, sound asleep; and our prayers said."

"Tilly-vally," exclaimed the King, "we might credit thy tongue, wench, but for the prayers. No digressions, spider Nell. My sword is in a fighting mood. 'Sdeath, call forth the knight-errant who holds thy errant heart secure for one short hour!"

"The knight of my heart!" cried Nell. "Ah, Sire, you know his name."

She looked at his Majesty with eyes of unfailing love; but the King was true to his jest.

"Yea, marry, I do," laughed Charles, tauntingly, with a wink at his companions; "a pretty piece of heraldry, a bold escutcheon, a dainty poniard--pale as a lily, and how he did sigh and drop his lids and smirk and smirk and dance your latest galliard to surpa.s.s De Grammont. Ask brother James how he did dance."

"Nay, Sire," hastily interceded the ever-gallant Rochester, "his Highness of York has suffered enough."

York frowned at the reference; for he had been robbed of his lady at the dance by Adair. He could not forget that. Heedless of his royalty, bestowed by man, she, like the others, had followed in the train of the Irish spark, who was royal only by nature.

"Hang the c.o.xcomb!" he snarled.

"'Slife, I will," replied Charles, slyly, "an you overtake him, brother."

"His back was shapely, Sire," observed Rochester, with quaint humour.

"Yea, and his heels!" cried the King, reflectively. "He had such dainty heels--Mercury's wings attached, to waft him on his way."

"This is moonshine madness!" exclaimed Nell, with the blandest of bland smiles. "There's none such here. By my troth, I would there were. Nay, ask Moll."