He was jaunty, sitting there, his long, elegant legs crossed, studying her with smiling eyes.

“I am honored,” she told him demurely, “to be visited by the King of France.”

“It is a marvelous thing,” he replied, “that I should have been a King before I was aware of it.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

He laughed suddenly. Then he said: “I trust you enjoyed the game.”

“It was the greatest fun,” she answered frankly.

“It gave my mother and sister much anxiety.”

“And you, I fear.”

“It would seem to me that you are a little méchant, ma belle-mère.”

“It is why I have always felt drawn toward you, mon beau-fils. We are alike in some ways.”

“All those weeks of uncertainty! I should have been crowned at Rheims by now.”

“But that is to come, Sire.”

“You should be trembling, so to have duped the King and his family.”

“So should I, did I not know that the King loves a joke—even against himself—as well as I do.”

“Nevertheless, this was beyond a joke.”

“Then, Sire, you are indeed angry. But I do not believe it. You still look at me with such friendship.”

François began to laugh and she joined in; she was thinking of young Anne, carefully padding her, and the expression on Louise’s face when she had studied her thickened figure.

“’Twas a good joke, Sire,” she said between her gusts of laughter. “You will admit that.”

“It did not seem so then,” he said, trying to look solemn; but he could not set his face into severe lines, and he was thinking: Why was I not given this girl instead of Claude? He was speculating too. He would marry her to Savoy and she and her husband should be at Court. He would carry on his flirtation with her and, when he was King and she was Duchess of Savoy, there was every hope of their little affair reaching its culmination. He might come to an arrangement with Savoy that the marriage should be one of convenience. Savoy need never be a husband to her and she could be the maîtresse-en-titre of the King of France. It was not difficult for a king to arrange such matters.

He could see a very pleasant future ahead of them, so how could he be angry with her?

“If you were not so beautiful,” he said, “I might decide you should be punished in some way.”

“Then I thank the saints for giving me a face that pleases the King of France—and a body too … although that did not once please him so well.”

“So,” went on François, “instead of sending my guards to arrest you and take you to some dark dungeon, I will tell you of the future I have planned for you. I shall never allow you to leave France, you know.”

All the gaiety left her face; she was alert now.

“My home is in England,” she began. “Now that I no longer have a French husband I should return to my native land.”

“My dearest belle-mère, we will find you a husband who will please you. In fact I have someone in mind for you.”

“The Duke of Savoy by any chance?”

“So you already had your eye on him. He will be a good husband to you.”

“When I marry, Sire, I should like to be the one who had decided on my partner.”

François slowly uncrossed his legs. He rose and came to her chair. There he stood smiling down at her.

“You are fully aware of my feelings toward you.”

“Oh yes. You forgive me my follies because you like my face and now my figure.”

He took her hands and pulled her up, standing very close to her.

“I have thought a great deal about our future,” he told her.

“Ours?”

“Yours and mine.”

“Yours is a great destiny.”

“I should like you to have a share in it. I think that together we should find great … contentment.”

“I to share your life? And your Queen?”

“Poor little Claude. She will do her duty in a docile manner, but she will not expect to share my life.”

“But she shares your throne.”

“Here in France it is the woman the King loves who is in truth Queen of France—not the one he marries.”

“You are suggesting that I become your mistress!”

“Do not look horrified. You have forgotten that I am now the King. Everything you wish will be yours. Savoy shall understand the position so that he will be no encumbrance to you.”

“I see. Is that how matters are arranged in France?”

“It is how I intend matters shall be arranged in France.”

He had his arms about her and she placed her hands on his chest, holding him off. He could see now that she was in truth afraid of him.

“François,” she said urgently, “you have always been my friend.”

“And always will be, I hope.”

“From the moment I saw you, although my coming could well have meant the death of all your hopes, you were good to me. More than anyone you made me feel welcome and comfortable in a new land.”

“That was my endeavor.”

“So now I am going to be frank with you. I am going to ask you to help me. I am fond of you, François. You see I speak to you as my friend—not as the King of France. But I shall never willingly be your mistress. Oh, it is not that I hate you, or find you repulsive. That would be foolish. Everyone knows you are the most attractive man in France. But François, before I came to France I loved, and I do not change. I shall love one man forever.”

“Suffolk?” said François.

“You know.”

“You betrayed your feelings at the tournament, when he tilted against the German.”

She had clasped her hands across her breast and was looking at him appealingly. François turned away. This was too much. After having played her tricks on him and his family she was asking him to help her make a secret marriage with Suffolk, so that the dowry and the jewels should not after all remain in France.

The impudence of this girl was past belief.

She was catching at his arm and there were tears in her beautiful eyes. “Oh, François, you who are so gallant, so wise, will understand. I shall tell you everything because you are as a brother to me … the dearest, kindest brother any girl ever had. I thought I should die of a broken heart when they told me I should have to marry Louis. And my brother promised me that if I did, on his death I should marry whom I pleased. That time has come, and I shall look to my brother to keep his promise.”

François walked away from her and pulled thoughtfully at the hangings.

He said, without turning to look at her: “I can tell you this. Your brother has no intention of keeping his promise to you. He is negotiating for the Prince of Castile as your second husband.”

“When I see my brother I can persuade him.”

“As you hope to persuade me?”

“I know that you are kind at heart and would always want to help a woman in distress.”

“You ask too much,” said François. And indeed she did, she who refused his embraces and had the effrontery to ask him to help her to enjoy a rival’s!

“Not of you … the King … the all powerful King.”

“The marriage of Princesses cannot be settled at the whim of one King.”

“Not even when the King proposes to make a princess his mistress after marrying her to a complaisant husband?”

François muttered: “It is the wish of my ministers that you remain in France.”

“But you will not allow your ministers to rule France, surely?”

She came to stand demurely at his elbow and when he looked down into her lovely young face and saw the purpose there, when he remembered how moved she had been at the tournament, he was touched. He admired women who knew what they wanted and determined wholeheartedly to get it. He believed—and he knew he would continue to do so all his life—that the two most wonderful people in the world were his mother and sister. They had always known what they wanted and would always be bold enough to fight for it. Mary Tudor was another such. So he had to admire her while deploring what might have been called her insolence. François was deeply affected by women; having been brought up by such a mother and sister, women had been his chief companions during the formative years of his life. He idealized them, preferred their company to that of his own sex, and could not bear to disappoint those for whom he had some affection. Women aroused all his chivalry, and as he had been ready to sacrifice his desire for Françoise, he was now ready to do so for Mary Tudor.

He took her hand and kissed it.

“I envy Suffolk,” he said.

She threw back her head and laughed, showing her perfect white teeth and plump, rounded throat. What I am losing! thought François regretfully.

“You!” she cried. “You envy none. You are the King of France which is what you have always longed to be—and you will be beloved by your subjects, particularly the females, so you should envy none.”

“None but Suffolk,” he answered.

“François, you are going to help me? You are going to allow me to see Charles when he comes? You are going to put nothing in the way of our marriage?” She leaped up and threw her arms about his neck. “François, how I love my beau-fils.”

He smiled down his long, humorous nose. “But not as you love Suffolk?” he asked plaintively.

She shook her head sadly and kissed his cheek. Then she knelt demurely before him and, taking his hand, kissed it.

“I shall remember you all my life,” she said, “as one of the best friends I ever had.”

Mary paced up and down her chamber. In that adjoining, the English embassy was dining, and among them was Charles. She had not seen him yet, but she knew he was there.

The six weeks since the death of Louis were not quite at an end, but the Duke of Suffolk, as emissary of her own brother, would be allowed to visit her.

Burning with impatience she had plagued young Anne and all her attendants. How weary she was of her white mourning! How she longed to put on something gay. They assured her that nothing could have been more becoming than her white garments, but she was uncertain and so eager to appear at her best before her lover.

François, who on the 28th of January had been crowned at Rheims, clearly intended to keep his promise to her, for he raised no objection to Suffolk’s enjoying a private interview with Mary; and it was for this that she was now waiting.

It seemed hours before he came to her; she studied him intently for a few seconds and then threw herself into his embrace.

“I thought I should never be free,” she told him.

He kissed her with both tenderness and passion but she sensed his disquiet.

“Why, Charles,” she said, “are you not happy?”

“I could be happy only if there was nothing between us two.”

“But we are both free now. Think of that, Charles! And François is my friend. He will help us. There must be no delay. I shall not allow you to leave me again.”

He took her face in his hands and shook his head.

“There is the King,” he said.

“Henry? But I have his promise.”

“He is making plans for your marriage, and they do not include me.”

“Then he must change his plans. You forget that he has given me his word. Why, dearest Charles, you must not be unhappy now. I have been so excited … waiting for this moment. And now it is here, I do not intend to be cheated again.”

“I had a long talk with your brother before I left England.”

“But Henry knows what will happen. He would not have sent you here to me if he had not approved of our marriage, for he must know that I intend to marry you.”

“I must tell you something, my dearest. Before I left England, Henry made me take a solemn oath.”

Mary stared at her lover with tragic eyes.

“And there was naught I could do but take it.”

“And what was this oath?”

“That I would not induce you to plight your troth to me, nor seize the opportunity which my presence here might give me.”

“Henry made you promise that! And you did?”

“My beloved, you know your brother. What else could I do? I should not have been allowed to come here if I had not made it.”

Mary stared ahead with narrowed eyes. Her lips were firmly set. “I’ll not be cheated again,” she declared. “I tell you, I will not.”

Then she was twining her arms about his neck, giving him kiss after fierce kiss.

“I’ll not let you go,” she insisted. “I kept my side of the bargain, and Henry shall keep his. Charles, if you love me you will not allow a miserable promise to keep us apart. Do you love me, Charles? Do you love me one tenth as much as I love you?”

“I love you infinitely.”

“Then why so sad?”

“Because, my beloved, I fear our love will destroy us.”