Was it perchance precisely fair? The law of Archduchesses is sure their own, and no man can gainsay it.
Nigel, bewildered for a moment, stammered out--
"The Queen of Night!" and knelt to kiss her long slender fingers.
As he rose to his feet again she laid a hand lightly on his arm and said with a twinkle of merriment in her rich voice--
"Strange and inconsequent mixture are you, man! You face sword and fire, and lose not a heart-beat, nor a patch of colour. You meet a woman in the moonlight, and straightway your knees must knock, and you must tremble like a steeple in the wind."
"I crave pardon, your Highness!" said Nigel, recovering his boldness. "Great supreme beauty such as yours, if there be any like it anywhere, must needs give a man more than a feeling of awe!"
"Now you talk like a bold wooer and a poet. Faith! you have more than a touch of the poet, though my skill in the English tongue is not great enough for me to put a right value on your verses. 'Tis seven years since my cousin, the Infanta, thought to wed England. We all learned English in those days."
"But your Highness understood!" said Nigel eagerly. "It is but a day or two at most and I must ride into the very teeth of Gustavus. I burned to see your Highness, to thank you for my fortunes, and say that if your Highness has need of me at any time--"
"You will drop your regiment of Rough-riders like a hot iron and ride for me? And this is loyalty to the House of Habsburg!" Her smile blunted the edge of her ridicule.
"Saving my duty as a soldier, your Highness is _my_ House of Habsburg!" he rejoined with such an earnestness that broke down her fence of raillery.
"You Scots! Full of conceit! Sensitive! Brave to the degree that you do not even know you are brave! Kindly, so that you would die and not grudge the gift!... I shall not tempt you from your duty; but if I call you by this sign"--she drew out the figure from its hiding-place--"come what may ... I look to you. It will be no little matter."
Nigel's eyes were full upon her, for there was a solemnity in her voice, a note of strong appeal as from one high spirit calling to another and conscious of the other's attuning. He drew his sword and pressed the hilt to his lips in token of his fealty.