"You must have remarked, madam," continued Sir Thomas Overbury, "that all the many applications for your hand by sovereign princes, who could well pretend thereunto, have been rejected without consulting you; and so it will ever be. You will be condemned to pass through life without being permitted to bestow on any one in this country, or elsewhere, the greatest blessing to which man can perhaps aspire on earth--the possession of so charming and excellent a creature as yourself."
Arabella had been somewhat moved by the first part of his discourse; and she knew that there was but one way to cover her emotion, and to avoid being forced to deal seriously with a matter, which she saw might involve her in terrible difficulties if she treated it gravely. She resolved, therefore, to assume that gay and playful lightness of manner which had often been her resource under such circumstances; and though, for a moment, it cost her a great effort, she replied, laughingly, "You must not take it for granted, Sir Thomas, that I had an inclination to accept any of these mighty potentates, even if the King had wished it. The grapes, to be sure, are sour with me, as with the fox in the fable; and I will own that it is always much more agreeable to a woman to have her vanity flattered by the opportunity of saying 'No' to such tender supplications, than to have them dismissed without her interference. But, nevertheless, I can assure you, upon my honour, that if I had been left to act according to my own will and choice, not one of all these gentlemen who have asked the King for my poor hand should have obtained it. You cannot say, Sir Thomas, that you have ever seen on my part the least desire that their suit should be approved--or the least disappointment at their rejection."
"Certainly not, madam," answered the knight; "and I can easily conceive that a heart like yours, knowing that domestic happiness is rarely, if ever, obtained in a royal station, would gladly avoid such a state. But still, lady, you must be convinced that, if the King refuses you to foreign princes, he will be still more resolute in denying you to almost any of his own subjects."
"To any, I should think," replied Arabella.
"To any but one," replied Sir Thomas Overbury, "to whom, in his present mood, he can refuse nothing. Now, lady, listen to all in one word. Your union with Lord Rochester would to him secure, first, the inestimable blessing of a wife, whom he could both love and respect--who could both make his home bright and happy, and, by her experience of courts, guide, counsel, and support him; and, secondly, would obtain for him such an alliance with those from whom he has most to fear, as would ensure him against reverse in case of the decease of the King. You would gain an affectionate, warm-hearted, and sincere husband, who would be dependent upon yourself for the stability of his position; and, instead of being condemned to see life pass by without any of those ties which form a woman's happiness, would at once----"
"Stay, stay, Sir Thomas," cried Arabella, with a gay smile, "do not make the picture too enchanting. Consider, my dear sir, you are wooing for another, who has given no sign of love or hope.--Good faith! I shall expect, if ever I am to be a wife, to be courted, and flattered, and sought, just as much as other women, or perhaps more. Besides, the king's consent is not gained.--That would be the first step before asking mine, who, poor creature, have little power over my own destiny. Not that the King would not give me every liberty to refuse, I am sure. It is of my accepting only that he is afraid; and, depend upon it, as this hand is the only boon on earth I have to give, I will make the man who obtains it know its full value. Oh, I am a true woman! You do not know me yet, Sir Thomas. I will have all my caprices, too, according to rule and precedent; and I will make my stipulations, like the heiress of an alderman. There must be my dower, and my annual stipend, and my two coaches lined with velvet, and my gentlewomen, and my gentlemen ushers, and my horses, and grooms, and squires of the hand, and my ordinary maids and footmen, and my gowns of apparel, and my common gowns; and then there must be carpets, and hangings, and couches, and glass, and my sideboard of plate, and my canopy; and, moreover, I must be a duke's wife, so that nobody may go before me at the court.--Oh! you cannot imagine all the things that I will require," she added, with a laugh; "but, some day, you shall have an inventory of them: and now, good faith! I must fly to the Queen, for indeed, Sir Thomas, if it were known that I had been talking with you so long, and all about love and matrimony, we should both run a great risk of finding our way to the Tower, Adieu, adieu, with many thanks!" and thus saying, with a light step and gay air, she quitted the room.
The moment she was in the corridor, however, her face resumed its gravity, and she murmured, "Gracious heaven! when will men cease to make me the object of their ambitious schemes?"
In the meanwhile, Sir Thomas Overbury stood by the side of the table, and gazed down upon it with vacant eyes, "Yes," he said at length, "yes, her consent is sure, and this lightness but assumed to cover deeper things. That is clear enough. The rest must be done by Rochester; for doubtless, as she says, she will require courting.--The King, too, must be managed; but that can be done; and then, with his fortunes fixed upon a basis that nothing can shake, allied to Royalty itself, and with his doting monarch's whole life before him, he may indeed do what he will. And I!--Why, is he not my creature, as the King is his? When, too, he owes the rock on which his fortune is planted to my counsels, he must surely show his gratitude.--He is young, warmhearted--yet unhardened by a Court; and, even granted that, in a few years, he be corrupted by the invariable selfishness and baseness of such scenes as these, ere then the eagle shall have soared on high, unless fate clip his wings. Give me three years--but three years; and if with the powers of mind I feel within this brain, and the resolution I know within this heart, I rule not in the council chamber and the senate--why, let them kick me forth as a scurvy cur, unfitted for high places."
Thus thinking, he sat himself down to write again, and did not rise till the sound of the horns warned him that the King and Court were returning.