Having thus indicated the policy that his genius had instantly conceived, he paused with a little cough, then laughed, which he seldom did save when he had discomfited some one. He laughed now, thinking of M. D'Avaux, and there was a malicious note in it that would not have pleased that diplomat to hear.
The German princes laughed also, in a more good-natured fashion, and the whole company moved from their places with a sense that a final resolve had been reached.
"Come, gentlemen," said the Prince in his tired voice, "I think we have earned our dinner."
He handed to M. Fagel the letter written by M. D'Albeville.
CHAPTER XI
THREE PAWNS
Three English gentlemen were walking slowly round the Vyverburg on the side where stand the spacious courts of the Buitenhof; the ground beneath their feet was thickly covered with dry yellow leaves, and the trees above their heads almost bare, but the sun shone as strong as summer on the placid surface of the water, and gleamed with a red fire in the rows of long windows of the Government buildings; the sky was a great luminous space of blue gold, against which the trees and houses the other side of the lake showed with a tender clarity, like the pictures of that great artist, Ver Meer of Delft.
There were swans and ducks on the lake; they, like the water on which they swam, were touched with this universal hue of gold, and seemed to be cleaving a way through glimmering mists of sunshine.
The three gentlemen paused by one of the posts protecting the edge of the water; it was near evening, and under the calm was the sense of a little rising wind, salt from the sea. Not a word was spoken between these three who had fallen from much talk to idleness; all had the same subject in their minds, though each coloured it with his own temperament; all of them were remarkable-looking men, and typical of some aspect of the great movement of which they formed a part.
The eldest was a man still in his prime, red-haired and tanned to an unnatural darkness, with something stern, sad, and passionate in his face, and an abruptness in his movements; he wore the splendid appointments of a soldier; across his shoulder was twisted a rich oriental scarf of coloured silk and gold threads; his name was Fletcher of Saltoun, a noble Scot, who had returned from the Turkish war to assist in the enterprise of the Stadtholder.