“If I bore my proper title I should be a lord. If I bore my name you would have heard one of the most illustrious names of England.”
“What is your name, then?” asked Mazarin.
“My name is Mordaunt,” replied the young man, bowing.
Mazarin now understood that Cromwell’s envoy desired to retain his incognito. He was silent for an instant, and during that time he scanned the young man even more attentively than he had done at first. The messenger was unmoved.
“Devil take these Puritans,” said Mazarin aside; “they are carved from granite.” Then he added aloud, “But you have relations left you?”
“I have one remaining. Three times I presented myself to ask his support and three times he ordered his servants to turn me away.”
“Oh, mon Dieu! my dear Mr. Mordaunt,” said Mazarin, hoping by a display of affected pity to catch the young man in a snare, “how extremely your history interests me! You know not, then, anything of your birth—you have never seen your mother?”
“Yes, my lord; she came three times, whilst I was a child, to my nurse’s house; I remember the last time she came as well as if it were to-day.”
“You have a good memory,” said Mazarin.
“Oh! yes, my lord,” said the young man, with such peculiar emphasis that the cardinal felt a shudder run through every vein.