“Speak from your heart, sir, as you did to me yesterday. Be bold, yet not overbold. Tell her plainly that he is your friend; and that it was through your action he was betrayed. Say that you love the man. She likes loyalty.—Say he is a fine upstanding fellow, over six feet in height, with a good leg. She likes a good leg.—Say that he has not a wife, and will never have one. Wives and husbands like her not—in spite of le petit grenouille.—And look straight in her face, Master Anthony, as you looked in mine yesterday when I was a cry-baby. She likes men to do that.—And then look away as if dazzled by her radiancy. She likes that even more.”
Anthony looked so bewildered by these instructions that Mary laughed in his face.
“Here then, poor lad,” she said, “I will tell you in a word. Tell the truth and be a man;—a man! She likes that best of all; though she likes sheep too, such as Chris Hatton, and frogs like the Duke, and apes like the little Spaniard, and chattering dancing monkeys like the Frenchman—and—and devils, like Walshingham. But do you be a man and risk it. I know you can manage that.” And Mary smiled at him so cheerfully, that Anthony felt heartened.
“There,” she said, “now you look like one. But you must have some more wine first, I will send it in as I go. And now I must go. Wait here for the message.” She gave him her hand, and he kissed it, and she went out, nodding and smiling over her shoulder.
Anthony sat miserably on the window-seat.
Ah! so much depended on him now. The Queen was in a good humour, and such a chance might never occur again;—and meantime James Maxwell waited in the Tower.
The minutes passed; steps came and went in the passage outside; and Anthony’s heart leaped into his mouth at each sound. Once the door opened, and Anthony sprang to his feet trembling. But it was only the servant with the wine. Anthony took it—a fiery Italian wine, and drew a long draught that sent his blood coursing through his veins, and set his heart a-beating strongly again. And even as he set the cup down, the door was open again, and a bowing page was there.
“May it please you, sir, the Queen’s Grace has sent me for you.”
Anthony got up, swallowed in his throat once or twice, and motioned to go; the boy went out and Anthony followed.
They went down a corridor or two, passing a sentry who let the well-known page and the gentleman pass without challenging; ascended a twisted oak staircase, went along a gallery, with stained glass of heraldic emblems in the windows, and paused before a door. The page, before knocking, turned and looked meaningly at Anthony, who stood with every pulse in his body racing; then the boy knocked, opened the door; Anthony entered, and the door closed behind him.