"Nay, sir; Sir Godfrey Kneller will live forevermore in his long line of legitimate monarchs--ay, and others, perhaps not quite--"
"For God's sake, Mistress Barry! These are dangerous days; pray remember that I am the queen's limner."
Sir Godfrey Kneller spoke in a whisper, touching her arm with the handles of his brushes as he glanced apprehensively around the painting-room of his house in Great Queen Street.
Mrs. Barry looked at him with a reckless gaiety in her eyes.
"What, have I said anything treasonable, anything to compromise the Court painter?" she cried.
"Walls have ears, my dear," whispered the painter.
"And what matters that, so long as they have not tongues?" laughed the lady. "Ah, my dear Sir Godfrey, you do your art an injustice to fancy that any one could utter a word of treason in this room surrounded by so many living faces." She pointed to the easels on which were hung several portraits approaching completion. "They are all living, my friend. I vow that when I entered here just now I felt inclined to sink in a courtesy before Her Grace of Marlborough." She indicated the portrait of the duchess which Sir Godfrey had all but finished--one of the finest of all his works.
"Ah, who, indeed, could talk treason in the presence of Her Grace?" he said.
"None, save His Grace, I suppose," said the actress. "And now I am ready to sit to you--unless you have any further courtly compliments to pass on me. Only, by my faith, I do not choose to place myself nigh to Her Grace. Those eyes of hers make me feel uneasy. Prithee, Sir Godfrey, permit me to turn my back upon the duchess; the act will, I protest, give me a feeling of pride which will speedily betray itself on my face. People will say, 'Only an actress, yet she turned her back upon a duchess'--ay, and such a duchess! They say their Graces have lost nothing by their adherence to the Queen."
Mrs. Barry had now posed herself, flinging back her hair from her forehead, so that her broad, massive brow was fully shown, and the painter had begun to work upon her picture.
"Ah, people say that? And what reason have they for saying it, I wonder?" remarked Sir Godfrey.
"The best of reasons, my good friend. They say that their Graces have lost nothing by standing by the Queen, because if they ran a chance of losing anything they would quickly stand by the King--His Majesty over the water."