'Gravely offend the most devoted of sisters, Queen Marguerite of Navarre,' broke in Gilles quickly.
'Yes,' admitted Monsieur. 'I imagine that dear Margot will be in one of her most fretting humours when she finds that I am half-way to Paris instead of to Cambray. She hath vowed that if I fail her now in her schemes she'll never look on my face again. And she won't—for at least six months,' he added peevishly. 'Trust her for that! Margot is nothing if not obstinate! And my chance of getting a rich wife and some rich provinces of these accursed Netherlands will have vanished for ever. Ah, Gilles! my good Gilles!' he concluded, with naïve induction. 'You see what comes of it, if a man allows himself to be overruled by women!'
'Well!' retorted the other with a careless laugh. 'Meseems that Monseigneur hath not much cause to quarrel with his fate this time. King of the Netherlands!' he exclaimed, and gave a long, low whistle of appreciation. ''Tis no small matter——'
'Bah!' rejoined Monsieur with a shrug of the shoulders. 'To be a king among these dull-witted, slow-going Flemings is not altogether an enviable existence. Would you care for it, Gilles?'
'Oh, I, Monseigneur?' riposted Gilles gaily. 'I have so few kingly attributes.'
'Better to be Duc d'Alençon in Paris, eh, than King in Antwerp or in Ghent? Brrr!' added Monsieur, with a mock shudder. 'Think of the Flemish women, my good man!'
'I have thought of them, Monseigneur,' replied Gilles dryly, 'once or twice since we came into Flanders.'
'Well! and what did you think of them?'
'That God has fashioned uglier ones.'
'Where?'