“Would that all men were like you, le Beau!” sighed the hostess, not forgetting to glance at the King, who again sat disconsolate, in the midst of his attendant courtiers, drawn up, as in line of battle, against the wall.
“Heaven help us if they were!” slyly suggested Nell.
Rochester, who had been watching the scene in his mischievous, artistic way, drew from Portsmouth’s compliment to Adair another meaning. He was a mixture ’twixt a man of arts and letters and Satan’s own–a man after the King’s own heart. Turning to the King, with no desire to appease the mischief done, he said, banteringly:
“Egad, there’s a rap at you, Sire. France would make you jealous.”
The Duke of Buckingham too, though he appeared asleep, had seen it all.
“And succeeds, methinks,” he reflected, glancing approvingly in the direction of the Irish youth. “A good ally, i’faith.”
Nell, indeed, was using all her arts of fascination to ingratiate herself with the Duchess, and making progress, too.
“Your eyes are glorious, fair hostess,” she said, in her most gallant love-tones, “did I not see my rival in them.”
She could not, however, look at Portsmouth for laughter, as she thought: “I believe lying goes with the breeches; I never was so proficient before.”
The compliment aroused the King’s sluggish nature.