As Count Laski was handling the tablets, he touched, whether by accident or design, a spring that had not been observed by him to whom the present had been sent. The outer case flew back, and disclosed a miniature of the queen!
"I have been indiscreet," said the count, and immediately folded up and returned the tablets. "This is perilous ware to deal in, Duke of Lithuania. Have you aught else in the way of honest barter to propose?"
"What you may infer," said the duke, reddening with anger, and grievously embarrassed at his discovery—"What you may infer from this silly bauble I shall not be at the pains to enquire. I addressed you, my lord, in courteous and amicable terms; you have ill responded to them; our conversation had better close here."
"As you will," said the chancellor, bowing; and he continued his way towards the palace, with the same deliberate step with which he was proceeding when accosted by the duke.
"He is master of our secret," muttered the duke. "He or I"——
Chapter II.
In an apartment of the palace fitted up with every luxury her native Italy could supply, sat Bona, the young and beautiful queen of Poland. She is known to have transplanted into that northern clime, not only the arts and civilization of her own genial soil, but also the intrigue and voluptuousness, and the still darker crimes for which it was celebrated. Daughter of the crafty Sforza, Duke of Milan, educated in a city and at a court where pleasure reigned predominant, married out of policy to a monarch many years older than her own father, it was almost to be expected that she should seek, in the society of some gay cavalier, a compensation for this banishment to a northern country, and a sexagenarian spouse. Nor had she hesitated long in her choice. Albert Glinski, Duke of Lithuania, who, though he was the father of a son ripening into manhood, was still in the vigour of life, and surpassed all his younger rivals in grace of manner and charm of conversation, had soon fixed her regard, and won whatever of affection or love the luxurious princess had to bestow.
She now sat waiting his arrival. Punctually at the hour of eight he entered. If any observer could have watched the duke as he traversed the corridor which led to the queen's apartment, he would have had great difficulty in believing that it was a favoured lover that was passing before him; so serious a brow did he wear, and so deep an air of abstraction was there on his countenance. No sooner, however, did he enter that apartment, than, by a sudden effort, his countenance lit up; his manner grew free and unrestrained, and he assumed that mingled tone of gaiety and pathos so effective with the fair sex. Never had the queen felt more entirely convinced of the merits of her cavalier; never had she more thoroughly approved of the choice she had made.
When this favourable disposition was at its height, the duke, adopting gradually a more serious tone of conversation, said—
"Has it never occurred to you, charming Bona, that the most exalted of your sex share with the humblest this one privilege—love alone must be the motive which brings a suitor to their feet. That passion must be genuine, must be fever-high, which makes a subject quite forget his Queen in the lovely woman before him, and