As he turned and went to the door Barbara sat drumming her nails on the edge of the table, her eyes taking on a dangerous sparkle, and then all at once she pulled away from the maid and got to her feet, raising her arm to secure the last bodkin herself.

“Roger! I want to speak to you!”

His hand on the knob, he turned and faced her. “Madame?”

“Get out of here, Wharton.” She gave a wave of her hand at the maid but started to talk before the girl had had time to leave. “I think you’d better come tonight, Roger. If you don’t his Majesty will think it damned peculiar.”

“I don’t agree, madame. I think his Majesty must find it more peculiar that a man should be content to go tamely and parade his wife’s whoredom before half the Court.”

Barbara gave an unpleasant laugh. “The mistress of a King is not a whore, Roger!” Her eyes suddenly narrowed and hardened and her voice rose. “How often must I tell you that!” Then it fell again to become soft, purring, sarcastic. “Or can it be you haven’t noticed I’m treated with twice as much respect now as I got when I was only the wife of an honourable gentleman?” The inflection she gave the last two words showed her contempt of him and of her own insignificant station as his wife.

He looked at her coldly. “I think there’s a better word for it than respect.”

“Oh? And what’s that pray?”

“Self-interest.”

“Oh, a pox on you and your damned jealousy! I’m sick of your bellow-weathering! But you’ll come to the supper tonight and act as host or by Jesus you’ll smoke for it!”

Suddenly he crossed to her, his pose of indifference gone, his face flushed and contorted with anger. He caught hold of her fore-arm. “Be quiet, madame! You sound like a fish-wife! I was a fool not to have taken you to the country when I first married you—my father warned me you’d disgrace us all! But I’ve learned since then, and I’ve discovered that to some women freedom means license. It seems that you’re one of those women.”

Her eyes, almost on a level with his, stared at him tauntingly. “And if I am,” she said slowly, “what of it?”

All the uncertainty he had shown before her at first had now vanished completely, leaving him poised and determined. “Tomorrow we shall leave for Cornwall. I don’t doubt that two or three years of country quiet will do much to restore your perspective.”

With a sudden swift wrench she jerked away from him. “You damned noddy! Just you try spiriting me away to the country and we’ll make a trial of what good it does me to have the King’s favour!” They were standing silently, both breathing hard, staring fiercely into each other’s eyes, when there was a knock on the door and a voice called:

“His Majesty, King Charles II!”

Barbara looked around. “He’s here!” Automatically her hands went to her head to make sure that every hair was in place, her eyes moving swiftly and excitedly, and though her face still showed traces of anger it had cleared considerably. She went to pick up her black-spangled fan and then returned. “Now! Are you coming down to act as host, or no!”

“I am not.”

“Oh, you fool!”

Her hand lashed out and slapped him stingingly across the face and then she picked up her skirts and hurried across the room, pausing a moment to compose her features before she opened the door. Then she went out and down the broad portrait-lined hallway, to the staircase.

Below her stood the King in conversation with her cousin, Buckingham, but as she appeared both men stopped talking and turned to give her their attention. She came down slowly, partly because the precarious unbalance of pregnancy made her cautious, partly to let them admire her. And then as she reached the bottom she curtsied while both men bowed and the King, who alone might remain covered in his own presence, swept off his hat.

Barbara and Charles exchanged lingering smiles, deep intimate looks charged with memories and anticipation. And then she turned to the Duke who had been watching them with cynical amusement on his face.

“Well, George. I didn’t expect you back so soon from France.”

“I didn’t expect to be back so soon. But—” He gave a shrug of his heavy shoulders, glancing at the King.

Charles laughed. “But Philippe flew into a jealous rage. I think he was afraid his Grace intended to follow in his father’s footsteps.”

It was notorious gossip in both kingdoms that the first Buckingham had been the lover of beautiful Anne of Austria, who was now Louis XIV’s fat and old and ill-tempered mother. And his son had made no secret of his violent admiration for Minette.

“It would have been a pleasure,” said Buckingham, and made the King a half-mocking bow.

“Shall we go into the drawing-room?” asked Barbara then, and as they walked toward it she looked up at Charles, her face appealing, soft and almost childish. “Your Majesty, I’m in a most embarrassing position. There’s no host for the supper tonight.”

“No host? Where’s—You mean he didn’t care to come?”

Barbara nodded and dropped her black lashes, as though deeply ashamed of her husband’s bad manners. But Charles had another view of the matter.

“Well, I can’t say that I blame him, poor devil. Ods-fish, it seems a man with a beautiful wife is more to be pitied than envied.”

“If he lives in England, he is,” said the Duke.

Charles laughed good-humouredly. He could not be offended on the subject of his own habits for he did not try to fool himself about them.

“Still, every party needs a host. If you’ll permit me, madame—”

Barbara’s purple eyes gleamed with triumph. “Oh, your Majesty! If you would!”

Now, as they entered the doorway and paused for a moment, the roomful of people swung to face them as though magnetized. The hat of every man came off in a sweeping bow and the ladies bent gracefully to the ground, like full-blown flowers grown too heavy for their stems. Barbara had already become so successful and important a hostess that she did not find it necessary to welcome her guests as they arrived. Everyone of any ambition, whether social or political, was delighted to receive an invitation from Mrs. Palmer and would not have complained whatever her manners might be. For many were convinced she would one day, perhaps soon, be Queen of England.

A year ago Barbara would have thought it incredible that she would ever have in her home all at one time these men and women she now used so carelessly.

There was Anthony Ashley Cooper, small, emaciated and sick, related to many of the most powerful families in the nation. By some sleight-of-hand performance he had contrived to transmute himself into a loyal Cavalier at just about the time of the Restoration. The feat, however, was no very unusual one. Sympathizers with or active workers in the old regime had by no means all been hanged and quartered or harried into exile—many of them now supported the Monarchy and, in fact, formed the basis of the new Government. Charles was too practical and too well-versed in politics to have imagined that his Restoration could mean a complete overthrow of everything that had been done these past twenty years; the recent change had been mostly superficial. Cooper, like many another, had adopted a new set of manners which matched better with Charles’s Court, but he had relinquished neither principles nor fundamental intentions.

There was Cooper’s good friend, the Earl of Lauderdale, a huge red-faced red-haired Scotsman whose brogue was thick even though most of his forty-five years had been spent in England. He was ugly and coarse and boisterous, but he had an amazing education in Latin, Hebrew, French, and Italian which he had laboriously acquired during his years of imprisonment under the Commonwealth. Charles found him amusing and the Earl had a deep affection for his King.

George Digby, Earl of Bristol, was a good-looking man of almost fifty, vain and unreliable, but he had in common with Cooper and Lauderdale a violent hatred of the Chancellor. That hatred, founded on envy and jealousy, served to unite most of the ambitious men at Court. To put Chancellor Hyde out of the way was their highest aim, their greatest hope. Barbara’s house gave them a rallying-ground, for here they might meet the King when he was at his leisure and most accessible.

But many of them were merely gay young people interested in nothing more serious than their love-affairs and gambling, in learning the latest dance or keeping apace with the French fashions.

Lord Buckhurst, only twenty-three, lived at Court but had no use for it, and refused to exert himself to become a man of power. Henry Jermyn was a big-headed spindle-shanked fop who was enjoying a considerable amatory success because many persons believed he had been married to the dead Princess Mary. Among the ladies was the voluptuous cat-like Countess of Shrewsbury; Anne, Lady Carnegie, flagrantly over-painted, now famous because she had shared Barbara’s first lover with her; Elizabeth Hamilton, a tall gracious cool young woman, newly arrived at Court, whom it was the fashion to admire. They were all about Barbara’s age, twenty or younger, for the men were outspoken in their opinion that a woman had begun to decay at twenty-two.

The immense drawing-room was furnished well, hung with heavy draperies of gold-green, lighted by dozens of candles burning in wall-sconces and in brass chandeliers overhead. The floor was uncovered and the high heels made a melodious tapping upon it. Laughter seemed to fill the air to the very ceiling; a band of musicians played in one corner; silverware and dishes rattled together.

An adjoining room was set with a buffet-table, in the French style which Charles preferred, and footmen swarmed everywhere. The dishes piled upon it might have done justice to a cathedral builder: pompous confections decorated with candied roses and violets; little dolls in full Court dress spinning about on cake tops; great silver porringers containing steaming ragouts of mushrooms, sweetbreads, and oysters. Bottles of the new drink, champagne, crowded the tables. No more was an Englishman to be satisfied with boiled-mutton and pease and ale. He had learnt better in France and would never be reconciled to the old fare again.