She pressed my lips against hers, biting them a little with the edges of her teeth.

I continued to enlarge upon the episode of the twins. Before I finished my tale, she had fallen asleep in my arms. I placed her gently upon the bed. I undressed and joined her.

My first passionate caress awakened her.

Will,” she whispered. She looked at me. “Forgive me, Cartaphilus—I love you.”

“And not Shakespeare?”

“When I am with Cartaphilus—no.”

“Toni!”

She stood up suddenly. “Where is Kotikokura?”

“Do not fear, my love. He is fast asleep. Besides, he never intrudes.”

“He is a dear fellow. I like him greatly. There is something of the wild forests about him. If Will saw him he would put him into a play.”

“Tell me what prompted you to disguise yourself as a boy?”

“It was the only way I could be near him, since the law does not permit our sex to appear on the stage.”

“But Shakespeare knew your sex?”

“Not at first…”

“He loved you…”

“Yes… He was completely bewildered…at first, but in his heart of hearts he suspected my secret.”

“How do you know?”

She pouted. “Because he poured his soul into his sonnets.” Her lips moved, caressing each word affectionately.

“And when he discovered that nature had not been so cruel?…”

“He was overjoyed. It remained a sweet, shameful secret between us. If my true sex were known, I would be banished from the stage, and the Lord Chamberlain would punish Will. In the eyes of the law we are no better than vagabonds.”

“Do you like to play the boy, to be his play-boy?”

She hesitated a minute. Then she said shyly, “Yes.” She blushed “He called me master-mistress of his passion…”

We spent the rest of the day and the night in the exquisite pleasure-pain of amorous dalliance. At one moment, she reminded me of Antonia, at another of Antonio, and as I fell asleep, she was Salome in the desert.

When I awoke, the sun glared into the room and Kotikokura raised slowly the curtain.

I stood up.

“Where is she, Kotikokura? Where is she?”

Kotikokura grinned, thinking that I was dreaming. I realized that he had probably never guessed the delectable gender of Willie Hewes.

“Where is the youth?” I asked, jumping off the bed.

Kotikokura handed me a letter.

“Dearest Cartaphilus,

“If I remained another night with you, I should never be able to go back. I must tear myself away as one tears an arm out of its socket. But it must be done, my love, my brother.

“Will Shakespeare is the saddest of men and his life is a torture. Without me, what would become of him? He would nevermore write. He needs me.

“As for me—what does it matter, Cartaphilus? How long more can I be Willie Hewes, or Antonio without suspicion? How long more before—no matter, dearest—my heart breaks! A thousand kisses—and one for Kotikokura.

“P.S. Forgive me if I do not accept your gifts, save the little chain. I must return to Will Shakespeare as I was before I met and before I loved too much the Much-Beloved…

“Toni.”

I turned my face to the wall and wept. Kotikokura wept also.

LORD VERULAM sent a messenger to fetch me. He was very cheerful. He had studied my question carefully. There was a way to silence those preposterous heirs.

“I found it for you, because your case is just. Never in all my career, did I pronounce judgment in favor of him whom I considered guilty. I have received payments and gifts for my labors, it is true, but never—I swear it by my God and country—have I betrayed truth and justice.”

There was a strange pathos in his voice.

“By the way, Baron, do you smoke?”

“I have noticed the popularity of the pipe in England. What is it you smoke?” I asked.

“Tobacco. A plant recently introduced from America. It is the best thing that has come out of the New World.”

He offered me a pipe. We seated ourselves deeply into our chairs, and blew the smoke upward like chimneys of homes where abundance reigns.

I thought of Salome and the desert and Flower-of-the-Evening, and as I closed my eyes, the image of Willie Hewes reappeared before me in the glory of her epicene youth.

Why had she left me for Shakespeare? “Another night with you and I should never be able to go back.”

“My Lord,” I said suddenly, “what can you tell me about this Master Will Shakespeare?”

“You have seen his ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ ”

“Yes, I know. But is he really a genius?”

Bacon smiled. “The age of geniuses is past, Baron. We must resign ourselves to be people of talent. Master Will is a clever craftsman, but he is a thief. He steals with the unconcern of a child whose conscience has been untutored. ‘Mine,’ he calls out gaily, whenever he comes across something that pleases him. He has done me the honor to borrow from me.”

“Do you allow this, my Lord?”

“It amuses me. I hear people praise him: ‘What depth of thought and emotion!’ They really praise me unwittingly. Besides, I have enough ideas to spare for a poor fellow who is hungry for fame as a cat is for mice. If only he would not be so anxious for the applause of the groundlings and torture my ideas and the charming fancy of the Italians into such barbarous forms!

“My gracious sovereign, Queen Elizabeth—may her soul rest in peace—had a fancy for him and his work. She used to go to his theater masked, and she established his reputation.”

“Do you believe, my Lord, that his fame will be enduring?”

“No. He will die with his generation. The only man who may outlast his contemporaries is Ben Jonson. He is a scholar and a thinker, but his daily broils are intolerable.”

“Is he handsome?”

“Who?”

“Shakespeare.”

His Lordship laughed uproariously. “Handsome? A face like a bag-pipe the Scots use for serenading their lasses, a head bald to the neck with a fringe of red that looks like the scrapings of carrots.”

“How does it happen, then, that Willie Hewes is so obsessed with Shakespeare?”

“I do not understand it, Baron. It is scandalous on Will’s part to parade his emotions so brazenly. The boy does not know better. His age is his excuse. You and I are men of the world. We understand classic vagaries. But the world condemns them, even in its more liberal moods, with an obscene smirk. I have spoken to Shakespeare about the boy and his own reputation on several occasions. He looked at me bewildered and tears rolled down his puffed cheeks. He is intolerably sentimental. I turned away.”

“Willie Hewes is a strange youth.”

“I like him immensely. No shepherd in Virgil’s Eclogues is more delightful. The stage will spoil him, I fear, and his association with Shakespeare is unfortunate. I do not approve of the new movement, headed by people nicknamed the Puritans, for purging a man’s soul by destroying it, which seems to gain a firm foothold in England. But there are limits beyond which freedom is license. Shakespeare has been accused of being a panderer. His treatment of his poor wife almost exhausts my patience.”

“Is he married?”

“He married at the age of seventeen, I believe, forsook his wife, leaving her to support his two or three children. He still refuses to return to her bed, preferring to play Jupiter to his Ganymede,” Bacon snorted indignantly.

We remained silent, puffing at our pipes slowly. How could Antonia-Antonio love such a man? What hidden charm or beauty did he possess which made him attractive to her?