“It is true. Happy the monarch whose faithful servant is the confidant of the heir to his crown!”
“Could the prince harbour one thought displeasing to your majesty, I think I could detect and quell it at its birth. But your majesty is blessed in a grateful son.”
“I believe it. His love of pleasure decoys him from ambition—so it should be. I am not an austere parent. Keep his favour, Don Roderigo; it pleases me. Hast thou offended him in aught?”
“I trust I have not incurred so great a misfortune.”
“He spoke not of thee with his usual praises—I noticed it. I tell thee this that thou mayest rectify what is wrong. Thou canst not serve me more than by guarding him from all friendships save with those whose affection to myself I can trust. I have said enough.”
“Such has ever been my object. Bat I have not the youth of the prince, and men speak ill of me, that, in order to gain his confidence, I share in his pursuits.”
“It matters not what they say of thee. Faithful ministers are rarely eulogised by the populace or the court. Thou knowest my mind: I repeat, lose not the prince’s favour.” Calderon bowed low, and withdrew. As he passed through the apartments of the palace, he crossed a gallery, in which he perceived, stationed by a window, the young prince and his own arch-foe, the Duke d’Uzeda. At the same instant, from an opposite door, entered the Cardinal-Duke de Lerma; and the same unwelcome conjunction of hostile planets smote the eyes of that intriguing minister. Precisely because Uzeda was the duke’s son was he the man in the world whom the duke most dreaded and suspected.
Whoever is acquainted with the Spanish comedy will not fail to have remarked the prodigality of intrigue and counter-intrigue upon which its interest is made to depend. In this, the Spanish comedy was the faithful mirror of the Spanish life, especially in the circles of a court. Men lived in a perfect labyrinth of plot and counter-plot. The spirit of finesse, manoeuvre, subtlety, and double-dealing pervaded every family. Not a house that was not divided against itself.
As Lerma turned his eyes from the unwelcome spectacle of such sudden familiarity between Uzeda and the heir-apparent—a familiarity which it had been his chief care to guard against—his glance fell on Calderon. He beckoned to him in silence, and retired, unobserved by the two confabulators, through the same door by which he had entered. Calderon took the hint, and followed him. The duke entered a small room, and carefully closed the door.
“How is this, Calderon?” he asked, but in a timid tone, for the weak old man stood in awe of his favourite. “Whence this new and most ill-boding league?”