Mary Carmichael was no exception to the rule of her sex. In fact, she possessed more than her due share of that pride which, when brought in contact with a kind nature, produces so much sorrow, and with a proud one so much dissension. Although the Queen, who was again seated, had dismissed her from her duty as train-bearer, and she was at liberty to converse with all the freedom a crowded assembly permits, she could think of no more pertinent remark to make to her admirer than the following:—
‘You have brought us news from the French Court, Master Maxwell? Is it as gay as it used to be? I wonder you had the heart to leave it.’
There was something in her manner that repelled and irritated him.
‘I came to serve my Queen,’ he replied, stiffly, and in a tone as cold as her own. ‘Our sovereign knows how to appreciate loyalty, and does not forget her old adherents in the short space of a few months.’
‘Our sovereign would welcome a lapdog if it came from France, I think,’ replied the other, indifferently, utterly disregarding the future suffering her insincerity would cause herself. ‘Our sovereign has already expressed her satisfaction at seeing you, and would probably give you a yet heartier greeting if you could inform her of the latest fashions in head-tire and farthingale. We are far behindhand here, you see, in these barbarous regions!’
She spoke with an assumption of levity so unlike herself, that he was disgusted as well as angry; and, indeed, it was somewhat unjust that the maid-of-honour should thus revenge upon him her own confusion at his appearance.
‘I am no silk-mercer,’ he answered, rudely; ‘nor have I travelled so far to bring a lady the colour of a ribbon.’ And with a swelling heart and a feeling of pain he could not have believed possible without experiencing it, Walter Maxwell turned away, and lost himself amongst the crowd of surrounding courtiers.
Far different was the conversation carried on at the same moment by that courtly pair, the diplomatic Mr Thomas Randolph and the stately Mistress Mary Beton. The former, with his keen political foresight, had lately been reflecting that a close intimacy with at least one of the household, would open a fertile channel for information regarding the Queen’s private thoughts and doings, such as would be invaluable to him in his present capacity as confidential agent to Elizabeth. He had also observed the admiration which his late appearance had obviously elicited from the senior maid-of-honour; and he had no more scruple in deliberately proceeding to make love to that austere damsel than he would have had in putting her to the torture, had the latter process, rather than the former, been the most effectual way of gaining her confidence.
Mary Beton was not insensible to admiration. She was a woman, and, with all her magnificence of deportment, consequently inherited the propensities of her sex; but she would not have appreciated indiscriminate homage; and the dish to please her palate, if we may so speak, required to be elaborately dressed and seasoned, and sent up on a silver trencher at least.
To have won Mr Randolph’s good opinion, however, was a conquest of which any lady might be proud. The ambassador’s high position, his invariable assurance and self-reliance, his thorough knowledge of the world, and sarcastic readiness of tongue, had rendered him an object of considerable interest to the dames of the Scottish court. They exaggerated, as women will, his influence, his talents, his successes—diplomatic as well as social—and the favour with which he was regarded by the English Queen. They quoted him, they talked about him—above all, they were a little afraid of him; and the latter sensation possesses an indefinable charm for the venturous tendencies of the female character.