“I seek it on Sir Richard de Clare, the young Earl of Gloucester.”
“He is no friend of mine!” said Sir Piers, between his teeth. “His father married the woman I wanted. I should rather enjoy it than otherwise.”
“The Lady his mother yet lives.”
“What is that to me? She is an old hag. What do I care for her now?”
Delecresse felt staggered for a moment. Bad as he was in one respect, he was capable of personal attachment as well as of hatred; and Sir Piers’ delicate notions of love rather astonished him. But Sir Piers was very far from being the only man who was—or is—incapable of entertaining any others. Delecresse soon recovered himself. He was too anxious to get his work done, to quarrel with his tools. It was gratifying, too, to discover that Sir Piers was not a likely man to be troubled by any romantic scruples about breaking the heart of the young Margaret. Delecresse himself had been unpleasantly haunted by those, and had with some difficulty succeeded in crushing them down and turning the key on them. Belasez’s pleading looks, and Margaret’s bright, pretty face, persisted in recurring to his memory in a very provoking manner. Sir Piers was evidently the man who would help him to forget them.
“Well!—go on,” said the Minister, when Delecresse hesitated.
“I have good reason to believe that Sir Richard is on the point of wedding the Damsel Margaret de Burgh; nay, I am not sure if they are not married clandestinely. Could not this be used as a handle to ruin both of them?”
The two pairs of eyes met, and a smile which was anything but angelic broke over the handsome countenance of Sir Piers.
“Not a bad idea for one so young,” he remarked. “Is it thine own?”
“My own,” answered Delecresse, shortly.