"An I were not so young," she simpers, "I'd cuff your ears, you saucy Pierre!"
"So young!" mutters Pierre Radisson, with grim looks at her powdered locks. "Egad's life, so is the bud on a century plant young," and he turns to his wife.
But my Lady Kirke was blush-proof.
"Don't forget to pay special compliments to the favourites," she calls, as we set out for Whitehall; and she must run to the door in a flutter and ask if Pierre Radisson has any love-verse ready writ, in case of an amour with one of the court ladies.
"No," says Radisson, "but here are unpaid tailor bills! 'Tis as good as your billets-doux! I'll kiss 'em just as hard!"
"So!" cries Lady Kirke, bobbing a courtesy and blowing a kiss from her finger-tips as we rolled away in Sir John's coach.
"The old flirt-o'-tail," blurted Radisson, "you could pack her brains in a hazel-nut; but 'twould turn the stomach of a grub!"
'Twas not the Whitehall you know to-day, which is but a remnant of the grand old pile that stretched all the way from the river front to the inner park. Before the fires, Whitehall was a city of palaces reaching far into St. James, with a fleet of royal barges at float below the river stairs. From Scotland Yard to Bridge Street the royal ensign blew to the wind above tower and parapet and battlement. I mind under the archway that spanned little Whitehall Street M. Radisson dismissed our coachman.
"How shall we bring up the matter of Hortense?" I asked.