Zarah looked at her, and compressed her lips, as if to keep in the words that would fain break from them.
“I know how it is,” said the King—“What your ladyship says may be true in the main, yet men’s tastes have strange vagaries. This girl is lost in Man as soon as the youth leaves it, and is found in Saint Jame’s Park, bouncing and dancing like a fairy, so soon as he appears in London.”
“Impossible!” said the Countess; “she cannot dance.”
“I believe,” said the King, “she can do more feats than your ladyship either suspects or would approve of.”
The Countess drew up, and was indignantly silent.
The King proceeded—“No sooner is Peveril in Newgate, than, by the account of the venerable little gentleman, this merry maiden is even there also for company. Now, without inquiring how she got in, I think charitably that she had better taste than to come there on the dwarf’s account.—Ah ha! I think Master Julian is touched in conscience!”
Julian did indeed start as the King spoke, for it reminded him of the midnight visit in his cell.
The King looked fixedly at him, and then proceeded—“Well, gentlemen, Peveril is carried to his trial, and is no sooner at liberty, than we find him in the house where the Duke of Buckingham was arranging what he calls a musical mask.—Egad, I hold it next to certain, that this wench put the change on his Grace, and popt the poor dwarf into the bass-viol, reserving her own more precious hours to be spent with Master Julian Peveril.—Think you not so, Sir Christian, you, the universal referee? Is there any truth in this conjecture?”
Christian stole a glance at Zarah, and read that in her eye which embarrassed him. “He did not know,” he said; “he had indeed engaged this unrivalled performer to take the proposed part in the mask; and she was to have come forth in the midst of a shower of lambent fire, very artificially prepared with perfumes, to overcome the smell of the powder; but he knew not why—excepting that she was wilful and capricious, like all great geniuses—she had certainly spoiled the concert by cramming in that more bulky dwarf.”
“I should like,” said the King, “to see this little maiden stand forth, and bear witness, in such manner as she can express herself, on this mysterious matter. Can any one here understand her mode of communication?”