The dreary Châtelard crept after her. ‘My prince—my lord!’
‘No, no; I cannot hear you now.’ She waved him off.
Bowing, he shivered at his plight; but ‘Courage, my child,’ he bade himself: ‘“Not now,” she saith.’
All dancing stopped, all secret talk, all laughing, teasing, and love-making. They opened her a broad way. The Earl of Bothwell swept the floor with his thyrsus: he was disguised as the Theban god. But she cried out the more vehemently, ‘No, no! I am pressed; I cannot hear you now. You cannot avail me any more,’ and flashed through the doorway. ‘Send me Livingstone to my closet,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘and send me Lethington.’ She ran up her privy stair, and waited for her servants, tapping her foot, irresolute, in the middle of the floor.
Mary Livingstone flew in breathless. ‘What is it? What is it, my lamb?’
‘Get me a great cloak, child, and hide up all this foolery; and let Mr. Secretary wait until I call him.’
Mary Livingstone covered her from neck to foot, took off the scarlet cap, coifed her head seemly, brought a stool for her feet: hid the boy in the lady, you see, and all done without a word, admirable girl!
The Queen had been in a hard stare the while. ‘Now let me see M. de Lethington. But stay you with me.’
‘Ay, till they cut me down,’ says Livingstone, and fetched in the Secretary.
She began at once. ‘I find, Mr. Secretary, that there is room for more knaves yet in Scotland.’