"Was there ever fairer?" said I, under my breath.
"Tell me, are there many pretty ladies at your Queen's Court?" she said.
I feigned to consider deeply, and rehearsed the names of some known to me, praising this one and that, and marking how her breath came and went.
"But no one durst say a good word of any in the hearing of the Queen," said I. "She must ever be the fairest, the wittiest, the best proportioned, the most nobly endowed both in body and mind. Do you know, mistress, the Queen hath banished and even cast into prison many a man that has dared to wed one of her ladies?"
"Is she so unkind?" she said.
"And when Toby Caulfeild was leaving me he said, 'What will the Queen say, Chris?' and my doltish pate did not understand him."
"Why, that is simple," she said. "He meant that the Queen would be sore grieved at hearing of your hurt. With her own hand she wrote, 'Thy loving sovereign.'"
"She will love me no more when she knows that I love thee," said I, laying my hand upon hers.
She let it rest so for a little, and her cheeks went from red to pale, and from pale to red again. Then her hand stole from mine, and clasped the other upon her lap.
"Ay, none but thee," I said, seeking her eyes beneath the covert of their lids. I breathed her name. I reached out my hand and gently unclasped her twining fingers, and with a lift of the eyes she gave me my answer.