The Knave of Diamonds | Page 4

fancy. And the Queen can do
no wrong. Don't be a slave to the great god Convention! He's such a
hideous bore."
His bold dark eyes smiled freely into hers. It was evident that he wasted
little time before the shrine of the deity he condemned. But for all their
mastery, they held a certain persuasive charm as well. She hesitated a
moment longer--and was lost.
"Well, where shall we go?"
"I know of an excellent sitting-out place if your majesty will deign to
accompany me," he said, "a corner where one can see without being
seen--always an advantage, you will allow."
"You seem to know this place rather well," she observed, as she
suffered him to lead her away in triumph.
He smiled shrewdly. "A wise general always studies his ground," he
said.
CHAPTER II
THE QUEEN'S JESTER
The chosen corner certainly had the advantage of privacy. It was an
alcove at the end of one of the long narrow passages in which the
ancient hostelry abounded, and the only light it boasted filtered through
a square aperture in the wall which once had held a window. Through

this aperture the curious could spy into the hall below, which just then
was thronged with dancers who were crowding out of the ballroom and
drifting towards the refreshment-room, the entrance to which was also
visible.
An ancient settee had been placed in this coign of vantage, and upon
this they established themselves by mutual consent.
The man was laughing a little below his breath. "I feel like a refugee,"
he said.
His companion leaned her arms upon the narrow row sill and gazed
downwards. "A refugee from boredom?" she suggested. "We are all
that, more or less."
"I dispute that," he said at once. "It is only the bores who are ever
bored."
"And I dispute that," she replied, without turning, "of necessity, in
self-defence."
He leaned forward to catch the light upon her profile. "You are bored?"
She smiled faintly in the gloom. "That is why I have engaged the
services of a jester."
"By Jove," he said, "I'm glad you pitched on me."
She made a slight movement of impatience. "Isn't it rather futile to say
that sort of thing?"
"Why?" he asked.
"Because you know quite well it was not a matter of choice."
"Rather a matter of manque de mieux?" he suggested coolly.
She turned from her contemplation of the crowd below. "I am not going
to contradict you," she said, "I never foster amour propre in a man. It is

always a plant of hardy growth."
"'Hardy' is not the word," he declared. "Say 'rank,' and you will be
nearer the mark. I fully endorse your opinion. We are a race of
conceited, egotistical jackanapeses, and we all think we are going to
lick creation till a pretty woman comes along and makes us dance to
her piping like a row of painted marionettes. But is the pretty woman
any the happier, do you think, for tumbling us thus ruthlessly off our
pedestals? I sometimes wonder if the sight of the sawdust doesn't make
her wish she hadn't."
The drawl in his voice was very apparent as he uttered the last sentence.
His chin was propped upon his hands. He was obviously studying her
with a deliberate criticism that observed and considered every detail.
But his scrutiny held without embarrassing her. She met it with no
conscious effort.
"I can't bear cynicism," she told him frankly.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Cynics--real cynics--never can."
"But I am not a cynic."
"Are you sure of that?"
"Yes, quite sure."
"And yet you tell me that you never take the trouble to flatter the
inferior male. That's conflicting evidence, you know. Are you a
man-hater, by the way?"
She shivered as if at a sudden draught. "I'm not prepared to answer that
question off-hand." she said.
"Very prudent of you!" he commented. "Do you know I owe you an
apology?"
"I shouldn't have said so."

"No? Well, let me confess. I'm rather good at confessing. I didn't
believe you just now when you said you were twenty-five. Now I do.
That single streak of prudence was proof absolute and convincing."
"I usually tell the truth," she said somewhat stiffly.
"Yes, it takes a genius to lie properly. I am not so good at it myself as I
should like to be. But a woman of twenty-five ought not to look like a
princess of eighteen--a tired princess moreover, who ought to have
been sent to bed long ago."
Her laugh had in it a note of bitterness. "You certainly are not the sort
of genius you aspire to be," she said, "any more than I am a princess of
eighteen."
"But you will be a queen at thirty," he said. "Hullo!