None of them dared say what each was thinking: There are only three of us left now—how long shall we be together?

Behind the royal family on the deck stood a splendid crowd of men and women, for though Minette’s suite was a small one of only about two hundred and fifty persons, each had been selected with the utmost care: the women for beauty and grace, the men for gallantry and a great name.

Among them, her eyes fixed intently on the English King, was a pretty young woman with the face of a little girl grown up and become sophisticated—Louise de Kerouaille, whose family, though ancient and honourable, was no longer rich. This trip was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her, her first real opportunity to make a place for herself in the great world where she knew she belonged. There was speculation in her eyes now as she watched Charles, admiring his dark saturnine good looks, his height and broad shoulders and handsome physique. She caught her breath with a quick little gasp as Minette and the two men turned, and the King’s eyes flickered briefly over her face.

Putting up her fan she whispered to the woman beside her: “Ninon—do you suppose that all the stories they tell about him are true?”

Ninon, perhaps a little jealous, gave Louise a look of amused scorn. “You are naive!” At that moment Charles glanced at her again; faintly he smiled.

But though he was never too much occupied to notice a pretty woman, Charles had no real interest now in anything but his sister. “How long can you stay?” was the first question he asked her when the greetings were over.

Minette gave him a rueful little smile. “Just three days,” she said softly.

Charles’s black eyes snapped and his brows drew swiftly together. “Monsieur says so?”

“Yes.” Her voice had a guilty sound, as though she were ashamed for her husband. “But he—”

“Don’t say it—I don’t want to hear you making excuses for him. But I think,” he added, “that perhaps he will reconsider.”

Monsieur reconsidered.

A messenger was back from across the Channel the next morning bringing word that Madame might remain ten days longer, provided she did not leave Dover. Minette and Charles were jubilant. Ten days! Why, it was almost an age. He was coldly furious to think that the conceited foppish little Frenchman had dared tell his sister where she might go on her holiday, but Louis sent a note asking him to respect Phillipe’s wishes in this matter, for Monsieur had learned of the treaty and might talk indiscreetly if angered too far.

Queen Catherine and all the ladies of the Court came down from London, and with the brief time he had Charles set about doing what he could to make the dismal little sea-coast village into a place fit for the entertainment of the person he loved best on earth. Dover Castle was cold and dark and damp, with the scant furnishings of feudal austerity; but it came alive again when the walls were hung with lengths of golden cloth; and scarlet and sapphire and vivid green banners streamed down from the windows. But even the Castle was not large enough to house them all and lords and ladies of both Courts were quartered in cottages or crammed into inns.

These inconveniences did not trouble anyone, and through every hour ran the noisy laughter and gay high spirits of a Court on holiday. Gilt coaches rattled through the narrow rocky little street. Handsomely gowned women and men in perukes and embroidered coats were seen in the tight courtyards, in the public-rooms of taverns and inns. Life was a continuous round of plays and banquets, balls at night and magnificent collations. While they danced and gambled flirtations sprang up like green shoots after rain between French ladies and English gentlemen, French gentlemen and English ladies. The gossip was that Madame had come to England for the very solemn purpose of laughing the English out of their own styles and back into French ones—temporarily discarded during the War—and that set the tone of the festivities.

Yet the plots and intrigues went on. They could no more be suspended, even temporarily, than could the force of gravity—for they were what held the Court together.

It took only a few days to get the treaty signed; it had been in preparation more than two years and there was little left to do but put the signatures to it. Arlington and three others signed for England, de Croissy for France.

For Charles it marked the successful culmination of ten years of planning. French money would free him, in part at least, from his Parliament; French men and ships would help him to the defeat of his country’s most dangerous enemy, the Dutch. In return he gave nothing but a promise—a promise that one day, at his own convenience, he would declare himself a Catholic. Charles was much amused to see how eager the French envoy was to complete the business, how eager they were to pay him for protection against a war he had never intended to wage.

“If everything I’ve ever done,” he said to Arlington, when it was signed and complete, “dies when I die—at least I’ll leave England this much. This treaty is a promise that one day she’ll be the greatest nation on earth. Let my French cousin have the Continent if he wants it. The world is wide, and when we’ve destroyed the Dutch all the seas on it will belong to England.”

Arlington, who sat with one weary hand pressed to his aching head, sighed a little. “I hope she’ll be grateful, Sire.”

Charles grinned, shrugged his shoulders, and reached down to give him a friendly pat. “Grateful, Harry? When was a nation or a woman ever grateful for the favours you do her? Well—I think my sister’s abed now; I always pay her a call last thing at night. You’ve been working too hard these past few days, Harry. Better take a sleeping-potion and have a good night’s rest.” He went out of the room.

He found Minette sitting up waiting for him in the enormous canopied four-poster bed. The last of her waiting-women were straggling out, and half-asleep on her lap was her little tan-and-black spaniel, Mimi. He took a chair beside her and for a moment they sat silent, smiling, looking at each other. Charles reached out one hand and covered both her own.

“Well,” he said. “It’s done.”

“At last. I can scarcely believe it. I’ve worked hard for this, my dear—because I thought it was what you wanted. Louis has often accused me of minding your interests more than his own.” She laughed a little. “You know how tender his pride is.”

“I think it’s more than pride, Minette—don’t you?” His smile teased her, for rumours still persisted that Louis had been madly in love with her several years before and had not yet quite recovered.

But she did not want to talk about that. “I don’t know. My brother—there’s something you must promise me.”

“Anything, my dear.”

“Promise me that you won’t declare your Catholicism too soon.”

A look of surprise came into Charles’s eyes, but was quickly gone. His face seldom betrayed him. “Why do you say that?”

“Because the King is troubled about it. He’s afraid you may declare yourself and alienate the German Protestant princes-he needs them when we fight Holland. And he fears that the English people would not tolerate it—he thinks that the best time would be in the midst of a victorious war.”

An almost irresistible smile came to Charles’s mouth, but he forced it back.

So Louis thought that the English people would not tolerate a Catholic king—and was afraid that a revolution in England might spread to France. He regarded his French cousin with a kind of amused contempt, but was glad it was always possible to hoodwink him. Charles had never intended and did not now intend to try to force Catholicism on his people—of course they would not tolerate it—and he preferred to keep his throne. It was his expectation to die quietly in his bed at Whitehall.

Nevertheless he answered Minette seriously, for even she did not share all his secrets. “I won’t declare myself without consulting his interests. You may tell him so for me.”

She smiled, and her little hand pressed his affectionately. “I’m glad—for I know how much it means to you.”

Almost ashamed, he quickly lowered his eyes.

I know how much it means to you, he repeated to himself. How much it means—He made a fervent wish that it would always mean as much to her as it did now. He did not want her ever to know what it was to believe in nothing, to have faith in nothing. He looked up again. His eyes brooded over her, his dark face earnest and unsmiling.

“You’re thin, Minette.”

She seemed surprised. “Am I? Why—perhaps I am.” She looked down at herself and as she moved the spaniel gave a resentful little grunt, telling her to be still. “But I’ve never been plump, you know. You’ve always called me ‘Minette.’”

“Are you feeling well?”

“Why, yes, of course.” She spoke quickly, like one who hates to tell a lie. “Oh—perhaps a headache now and then. I may be a little tired from all the excitement. But that will soon pass.”

His face hardened slowly. “Are you happy?”

Now she looked as though he had trapped her. “Mon Dieu! What a question! What would you say if someone asked you, ‘Are you happy?’ I suppose I’m as happy as most people. No one is ever truly happy, do you think? If you get even half of what you want from life—” She gave a little shrug and gestured with one hand. “Why, that’s all one can hope for, isn’t it?”

“And have you got half of what you wanted from life?”

She glanced away from him, down at the ornate carved footboard of the bed; her fingers stroked through Mimi’s scented glossy coat. “Yes, I think I have. I have you—and I have France: I love you both—” She looked up with a sudden wistful little smile. “And I think that both of you love me.”