"What style will it please you this evening,—capricieuse or tout amiable? But I am wrong: a face like yours demands a suitable accompaniment. Esther Woodville—pardon my liberty of speech—should have her hair dressed à la Esther Woodville!"
"Anybody can see at a glance that you came from Paris," interposed Mrs. Marsham; "you know how to pay compliments. I fear that your talents may stop there, and that your comb is by no means the equal of your tongue."
"Madam shall be the judge. By his work is the artist known."
With a firm, experienced hand he seized the loosened tresses which overspread the girl's shoulders. Bending above her, inhaling her very personality, he spoke not, he hardly breathed, overcome by the violence of his emotions; while she, bending slightly forward, maintained a strange immobility. A cloud passed before his eyes; his brain reeled. Could he maintain the mastery of himself sufficiently to play the comedy to the end?
All at once a confused turmoil arose from the street below. Mrs. Marsham pricked up her ears.
"Can it be the king already?" she exclaimed.
In order to understand the true import of those two monosyllables, "the king," for the good lady, we must go back a quarter of a century to the time when George III., aged sixteen years, still dwelt in Leicester Fields with his mother, the Dowager Princess of Wales. Never did he pass through Long Acre on his way to the theatre, of which he was a constant patron, without casting a timid glance at pretty Sarah Lightfoot, where she sat at the desk in her father's shop, with her snow-white gown, her folded kerchief, and her glossy tresses innocent of powder. The young Quakeress would bend her head with a light blush beneath the mute and tender contemplation of those big, guileless eyes, undoubtedly more eloquent than their owner had any idea they were. The royal child would pause for a moment, and, heaving a sigh, would continue his way with his unequal, halting gait.
Long, long ago had his Majesty forgotten Sarah Lightfoot; but Sarah Lightfoot, the present Mrs. Marsham, had never forgotten his Majesty. Athwart her dull, peaceful, uneventful existence the charming memory cast a ray which but increased in brilliancy as the days wore on. She had never mentioned the subject in the presence of her son, fearing the disdainful shrug of Reuben's shoulders, and suspecting that he nourished some vague republican chimera; but she would speak complacently with her niece of the king's fancy, save that she asked God's pardon for indulging in such frivolous thoughts.
This was the reason why, on this particular evening, she had scarcely noticed Mr. Fisher's substitute, and why she was so attentive to the sounds in the street. She intended to see the king's arrival, for it seemed to her that the ovation intended for his Majesty by his loyal subjects in some remote way touched her. Mowbray knew nothing of these circumstances, but he confusedly divined that by means of the good woman's curiosity he might rid himself of her presence.
"The king?" said he. "Of course it is he; if you wish to see him you have no time to lose."