"Only to resume hostilities again, Your Eminence?"
"By all means."
"Once His Grace has ceased to think of Lady Ursula, I and my party will once more work heart and soul to bring about the alliance of Wessex with the Queen."
"And I to win the Queen's hand for Philip of Spain. Until then? . . ."
"Armed truce, Your Eminence."
"And you will accept my help? It may be worth having, you never can tell," quoth His Eminence with a sarcastic smile, which Everingham could not perceive in the darkness.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE VEILED WITCH
Lord Everingham felt not a little perplexed. The Cardinal seemed bent on pressing his point, and on obtaining a definite promise of friendship, whilst the young man would have preferred to leave the matter in statu quo, a condition of open and avowed enmity.
Moreover he would have wished to speak with some of his friends. Lord Sussex and the Earl of Oxford were staying at the Palace. Sir Henry Jerningham, Arundel, Cheyne, Paget, all hot partisans of Wessex, could easily be communicated with. In the meanwhile Everingham was racking his brain for the right word to say: the retort courteous, which would not hopelessly alienate His Eminence, if indeed he was seeking temporary friendship.