At last the summons for Villiers to enter the bedchamber was given and the young man went in.

Robert who had heard a rumor of what was about to happen could not believe it until he came to the door of the King’s bedchamber and saw a group of his enemies there—among them the excited young man on whom he knew they had fixed their hopes. He was in time to hear the summons and see the handsome youth walk into the bedchamber, and an impulse came to him to push them aside, to stride into the bedchamber, to upbraid the King before them all; but he remembered James’s words when he had not very long ago awakened him at what the King called an unseasonable hour. James had warned him then.

But how could he stand by and see this young man made a Gentleman of the Bedchamber when he had shown the King so clearly that he resented the office being given.

He curbed his anger. Frances would have spurred him on, but she was not with him now; and when he had to make his own decisions he was never as fiery as she would have him be.

He wrote a hasty message to the King, asking James to make Villiers a Groom of the Bedchamber instead of a Gentleman, if he must grant the Queen’s favor and give the young man some office.

Haughtily he called a page and bade him take the message to the King.

James received it, read it and thought sadly: Will he never learn his lesson?

He then knighted George Villiers and appointed him one of the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber.

That ambitious man, Sir George Villiers, had no wish to quarrel with the Earl of Somerset who still held the highest offices in the Kingdom. George Villiers knew that he had a long way to go before he was as powerful. If he could make a truce with Somerset, let him know that he had not thought of attempting to step into his place, he was sure he would more quickly climb in the King’s favor.