"I?" he exclaimed. "I love the Queen? I should as soon think of
coveting the King's crown!"

Henry looked into Gilbert's face a moment longer, and the blood slowly
subsided from his own.

"I can see that you are in earnest," he said, picking up the ball at
his feet, "though I cannot see why a man should not covet a king's
crown as well as a king's wife." He struck the ball.

"You are young," said Gilbert, "to ride atilt through all the Ten
Commandments at once."

"Young!" exclaimed the boy, keeping the ball up. "So was David when he
killed the giant! So was Hercules when he strangled the serpents, as
you told me the other day. Young!" he cried a second time, with
forcibly concentrated contempt. "You should know, Master Gilbert, that
a Plantagenet of thirteen years is the match of any other man of
twenty. As I can beat you at tennis, though you are six years older
than I, so I can beat you in other matters, and with the Queen herself,
even though she is half in love with you already, as all the court is
saying; and she shall belong to me some day, though I have to slay that
dish-faced prayer-master of a king to get her."

Gilbert was no more morally timid than he was physically a coward, but
he looked round with some anxiety as the boy uttered his outrageous
boast.

The place they had chosen for their game was the deep and shady corner
where the church made a right angle with the royal palace. The grass