She looked wise, as she smiled to feel her eyes grow dim. But then she shook her head. ‘He will come, he will come—but not so. I know him: oh, I know him like a thumbed old book! And when I bring out that which I have here’—her hand caressed the dagger—‘I know what he will do. Yes, yes, like an old book! He will rail against his betrayer, and in turn betray him. Ah, my King, my King, do I read you aright? We shall see very soon.’
She looked out upon the snowy close, the black walls and dun pall of air; she saw Sir James Melvill set forward upon his pious errand, and changed it, as you know. Then she resumed her judging and weighing of men.
Odd! She gave no thought to the wretched Italian, her mind was upon the quick, and not the dead. Ruthven, a black, dangerous man—scolding-tongued, impious in mind, thinking in oaths—yes: but a man! Archie Douglas, supple as a snake, Fawdonsyde and his foolish pistols, she considered not at all; but her mind harped upon Ruthven and the King, who had each laid rough hands upon her—and thus, it seems, earned her approbation. Ruthven had taken her about the middle and pushed her back, helpless, into the other’s arms; and she had felt those taut arms, and not struggled; but leaned there, her face in his doublet. Pardieu, each had played the man that night! And Ruthven would play it again, and the King would not. No, no; not he!
Ruthven, by rights, should be won over. Should she try him? No, he would refuse her; she was sure of it. He was as bluff, as flinty-cored as——Ranging here and there, searching Scotland for his parallel, her heart jumped as she found him. Bothwell, Bothwell! Ha, if he had been there! It all began to re-enact itself—the scuffling, grunting, squealing business, with Bothwell’s broad shoulders steady in the midst of it. Man against man: Bothwell and Ruthven face to face, and the daggers agleam in the candle-light:—hey, how she saw it all doing! Ruthven would stoop and glide by the wall: his bent knees, his mad, twitching brows! Bothwell would stand his ground in mid-floor, and his little eyes would twinkle. ‘Play fairly with the candle, my Lady Argyll!’ and he would laugh—yes, she could hear his ‘Ho, ho, ho!’ But she jumped up as she came to that, she panted and felt her cheeks burn. She held her fine throat with both hands until she had calmed herself. So doing, a thought struck her. She rang her hand-bell and sent for Des-Essars once more.
When he came to her she made a fuss over him, stroked his hair, put her hand on his shoulder, said he was her young knight who should ride out to her rescue. He was to take a message from her to the Earl of Bothwell—that he was on no account to stir out of town until he heard from her again. He should rather get in touch with all of her friends and be ready for instant affairs. Des-Essars went eagerly but discreetly to work. She then had just time to leave a direction for Melvill, that he should be first with her brother Moray, when they told her that the King was coming in.
‘Of course he is coming,’ she said. ‘What else can he do?’
Her courage rose to meet him more than half-way. If Des-Essars had been allowed to feel her heart again he would have found it as steady as a man’s.
‘I will see the King in the red closet,’ she said. ‘Seton, Fleming, come you with me.’
When he was announced he found her thus in company, sitting at her needlework on a low coffer by the window.
The young man had thickened rims to his eyes, but else looked pinched and drawn. He kept a napkin in his hand, with which he was for ever dabbing his mouth: seeming to search for signs of blood upon it, he inspected it curiously whenever it had touched him. As he entered the Queen glanced up, bowed her head to him and resumed her stitch-work. The two maids, after their curtseys, remained standing—to his visible perturbation. It was plain that he had expected to find her alone; also that he had strung himself up for a momentous interview—and that she had not. He grew more and more nervous, the napkin hovered incessantly near his mouth; half-turning to call his man Standen into the room, he thought better of it, and came on a little way, saying, ‘Madam, how does your Majesty?’