"Your Majesty is gracious."

"It will be secret service, for the present secret even from the King.
I may require it to-morrow, a week hence, or it may be in a month's
time. I cannot tell. It is perilous service, but that will not deter
Captain Desmond Ellerey. May I claim your full and perfect allegiance?"

"I hold myself entirely at your Majesty's disposal."

"You shall not find me ungrateful," she said, giving him her hand.
"Choose you a dozen stout men on whom you can rely. Good pay you may
promise them. Have them in readiness to set out at an hour's notice.
Then wait and watch. We shall call you into private audience on some
occasion, either personally or by Monsieur De Froilette, and now that
we have found the man, may the time be quick in coming."

There was delicate flattery in her words and manner, yet withal perfect
consciousness of her own power, the power that beauty gives. Ellerey
felt the magic of her influence, and his eyes looked unflinchingly
into hers for a moment; the woman in her understood what manner of man
he was in whom she trusted. "If I read you aright, Captain Ellerey,"
she said, with a radiant smile, "it is not your nature to be frivolous,
to catch pleasure as it flies and play with it while the bubble lasts;
yet must you school yourself to do so. The light-hearted cavalier and
careless lover will not be suspected of any deep design, and it would
be well that that should seem your character at Court. More easily
will you keep the nearer to our person, for love of pleasure and the
gratification of the moment is thought to be our end and aim also.
Even his Majesty is deceived in this, and knows not that under the
surface we are working night and day in his cause. Monsieur De Froilette