"Why do you say safer, sir?" he asked haughtily, while the colour on his cheeks was heightened. "Is any man's honour more to be trusted than mine?"
"Ah, man, I meant nothing against your honour; but Simon here has a discretion that heaven does not give to everyone."
Now, when I see a man so sensitive to suspicion as to find it in every careless word, I am set thinking whether he may not have some cause to fear suspicion. Honesty expects no accusation. Carford's readiness to repel a charge not brought caught my notice, and made me ponder more on certain other conferences to which also his Grace my patron was a stranger. More than once had I found Arlington and Carford together, with M. Colbert in their company, and on the last occasion of such an encounter Carford had requested me not to mention his whereabouts to the Duke, advancing the trivial pretext that he should have been engaged on his Grace's business. His Grace was not our schoolmaster. But I was deceived, most amiably deceived, and held my tongue as he prayed. Yet I watched him close, and soon, had a man told me that the Duke of York thought it well to maintain a friend of his own in his nephew's confidence, I would have hazarded that friend's name without fear of mistake.
So far the affair was little to me, but when Mistress Barbara came from London the day before Madame was to arrive, hardly an hour passed before I perceived that she also, although she knew it not, had her part to play. I cannot tell what reward they offered Carford for successful service; if a man who sells himself at a high price be in any way less a villain than he who takes a penny, I trust that the price was high; for in pursuance of the effort to obtain Monmouth's confidence and an ascendency over him, Carford made use of the lady whom he had courted, and, as I believed, still courted, for his own wife. He threw her in Monmouth's way by tricks too subtle for her to detect, but plain to an attentive observer. I knew from her father that lately he had again begged her hand, and that she had listened with more show of favour. Yet he was the Duke's very humble servant in all the plans which that headstrong young man now laid against the lady's peace and honour. Is there need to state the scheme more plainly? In those days a man might rise high and learn great secrets, if he knew when to shut his eyes and how to knock loud before he entered the room.
I should have warned her. It is true; but the mischief lay in the fact that by no means could I induce her to exchange a word with me. She was harder by far to me than she had shewn herself in London. Perhaps she had heard how I had gone to Chelsea; but whether for good reason or bad, my crime now seemed beyond pardon. Stay; perhaps my condition was below her notice; or sin and condition so worked together that she would have nothing of me, and I could do nothing but look on with outward calm and hidden sourness while the Duke plied her with flatteries that soon grew to passionate avowals, and Carford paid deferential suit when his superior was not in the way. She triumphed in her success as girls will, blind to its perils as girls are; and Monmouth made no secret of his hopes of success, as he sat between Carford's stolid face and my downcast eyes.
"She's the loveliest creature in the world," he would cry. "Come, drink a toast to her!" I drank silently, while Carford led him on to unrestrained boasts and artfully fanned his passion.
At last—it was the evening of the day before Madame was to come—I met her where she could not avoid me, by the Constable's Tower, and alone. I took my courage in my hands and faced her, warning her of her peril in what delicate words I could find. Alas, I made nothing of it. A scornful jest at me and my righteousness (of which, said she, all London had been talking a little while back) was the first shot from her battery. The mention of the Duke's name brought a blush and a mischievous smile, as she answered:
"Shouldn't I make a fine Duchess, Mr Dale?"
"Ay, if he made you one," said I with gloomy bluntness.
"You insult me, sir," she cried, and the flush on her face deepened.