Perhaps you are even with her; perhaps you, too, meeting her gloved hand in the dance, wince under the senseless exterior which you assume with your evening clothes, in painful consciousness that you cannot quite forget a Somebody of your own, the very rustle of whose dress was music to your ears in the olden golden days that are spent and vanished like a dream; ay, though you seemed so gay and caustic and debonair in the cloak-room a while since, when you walk out into the night, the stars you loved to watch for her sake long ago, look down upon you more in pity than reproach, and the sighing wind reminds you, as it never fails to do, of the gentle face that was all your trust and treasure once, that is lost to you now for evermore. There is no need for you to hum the refrain of that beautiful song, wailing for ‘the tender grace of a day that is dead.’ Are you likely to forget it, clinging as it does about your heart like ice, and chilling you to the marrow even now? Never mind! you have ‘done your ball’ handsomely and creditably, both to self and partner; it matters little that you are a couple of well-dressed hypocrites, covering your respective sores under broadcloth and Mechlin lace; you have offered your incense at the conventional altar; you have sacrificed religiously to society; you are at liberty to take off your trappings now, and wash the paint from your wan faces, and go both of you away by yourselves, to be as wretched as you please.
The Queen and her Maries danced on, fresh and gay to the very last. Even the musician’s well-trained fingers seemed less untiring than the ladies’ feet. But the revel came to an end soon after midnight, and the sentinels at the palace gates, relieved at that hour, glanced admiringly after the noble groups that departed in quick succession; some of the older and statelier forms, be it observed, walking with a more staid and solemn air than usual, attributable to the excess of the Queen’s hospitality, and the excellence of the French wines that graced her table.
There were two individuals, however, now strolling away arm-in-arm with an appearance of great cordiality, who never suffered their brains to be heated beyond their self-control, and who, relying on their wits as the good swordsman on his blade, were careful to keep those weapons constantly bright and keen and tempered for immediate use. They were engaged, even in this friendly promenade, in a kind of moral fencing-bout, with muffled points indeed, and bloodless intentions, yet such as should prove to each his adversary’s strength against the future possibility of a real encounter.
Said Mr Randolph to Secretary Maitland—
‘The revel hath indeed sped gaily. I never witnessed a merrier even at the English court, where my royal mistress hath always given so hearty a welcome to the Lord of Lethington. The masques were quaint, the music exquisite, the supper beyond all praise. Holyrood was indeed to-night one blaze of splendour.’
‘And our Scottish ladies?’ asked the Secretary, who had not failed to observe his companion’s attention to Mistress Beton, and, suspecting his design, glanced curiously at his face to gather what he could from that inscrutable volume.
The Firth down yonder sleeping in the moonlight, could not have been less unruffled than the Englishman’s countenance; nevertheless, his language was too enthusiastic to be sincere.
‘They are above all praise,’ said he. ‘Were I one of those soft-headed, iron-handed paladins of fifty years ago, I would break any number of lances in maintaining your Queen and her Maries to be the brightest bevy of beauty in Christendom! But those follies went out with the mass to make room for others! And, by the way, what thinks worthy Master Knox and his godly party of all this feasting and fiddling and mummery?’
‘There is a strong feeling of religion amongst our townsfolk,’ was the guarded answer, ‘combined with loyalty to Her Majesty.’