"My Lady Castlemaine," said Sir William Davenant, "hath been wreathed in smiles ever since you spoke that Epilogue. She vows that there is nothing she would not do for You. And, as already You are such a favourite with His Majesty, why, Man! there is no end to your good fortune."
And I, who watched Mr. Betterton's face again, thought to detect a strange, mysterious look in his eyes—something hidden and brooding was going on behind that noble brow, something that was altogether strange to the usually simple, unaffected and sunny temperament of the great Artist, and which I, his intimate Confidant and Friend, had not yet been able to fathom.
Whenever I looked at him these days, I was conscious as of a sultry Summer's day, when nature is outwardly calm and every leaf on every tree is still. It is only to those who are initiated in the mysteries of the Skies that the distant oncoming Storm is revealed by a mere speck of cloud or a tiny haze upon the Bosom of the Firmament, which hath no meaning to the unseeing eye, but which foretells that the great forces of Nature are gathering up their strength for the striking of a prodigious blow.
CHAPTER VII
AN ASSEMBLY OF TRAITORS
1
I, in the meanwhile, had relegated the remembrance of Lord Douglas Wychwoode and his treasonable Undertakings to a distant cell of my mind. I had not altogether forgotten them, but had merely ceased to think upon the Subject.
I was still nominally in the employ of Mr. Baggs, but he had engaged a new Clerk—a wretched, puny creature, whom Mistress Euphrosine already held in bondage—and I was to leave his Service definitely at the end of the month.
In the meanwhile, my chief task consisted in initiating the aforesaid wretched and puny Clerk into the intricacies of Mr. Theophilus Baggs' business. The boy was slow-witted and slow to learn, and Mr. Baggs, who would have liked to prove to me mine own Worthlessness, was nevertheless driven into putting some of his more important work still in my charge.
Thus it came to pass that all his Correspondence with Lord Douglas Wychwoode went through my Hands, whereby I was made aware that the Traitors—for such in truth they were—were only waiting for a favourable opportunity to accomplish their damnable Purpose.