"Who could help it? 'Tis common talk that 'tis but a device of the King to close the succession to the Princess Mary. And though you and I, my lord, know differently, this tale is as good as another to lead the mobile."
The Earl was slowly burning the letters before him by holding them in the flame of the wax-light of a taper-holder, and when they were curled away casting them on the floor and putting his red heel on them.
"What are these?" asked the Countess, watching him.
"Part of His Majesty's foreign correspondence, my dear, warning him to have an eye to His Highness the Stadtholder."
She laughed, half nervously.
"It seemeth as if you cut away the ladder on which you stood," she said. "If the King should suspect too soon—or the Prince fail you——"
"I take the risks," said Sunderland. "I have been taking risks all my life."
"But never one so large as this, my lord."
He had burnt the last letter and extinguished the taper; he raised his face, and for all his fine dressing and careful curls he looked haggard and anxious; the gravity of his expression overcame the impression of foppery in his appearance; it was a serious man, and a man with everything at stake on a doubtful issue, who held out his hand to his wife.
She put her fingers into his palm and stood leaning against the tall back of his chair, looking down on him with those languishing eyes that had been so praised at the court of the late King, now a little marred and worn, but still brightly tender, and to my lord as lovely as when Lely had painted her beautiful among the beautiful.