“How so?”
“That character, if I may venture to express myself thus, resembles that which my lord confessed just now to the Theatin.”
“Go on—that is?”
“Pride! Pardon me, my lord, haughtiness, nobleness; kings have no pride, that is a human passion.”
“Pride,—yes, you are right. Next?”
“Well, my lord, if I have divined rightly, your eminence has but to give all your money to the king, and that immediately.”
“But for what?” said Mazarin, quite bewildered.
“Because the king will not accept of the whole.”
“What, and he a young man, and devoured by ambition?”
“Just so.”