The powerful summer dawn, strengthening with every moment, penetrated the tent and mingled with the beams of the two lamps. The King sat in the crossed lights; his gentleman knelt before him, fastening the great gilt spurs to his close riding-boots. He looked at Joost van Keppel gravely and kindly; his face, pale in its proper complexion, was tanned darkly by the Lowland sun; his eyes were extraordinarily bright and flashing, but languid lidded and heavily shadowed beneath; his large, mobile mouth was set firmly; his long, thick curls hung over his black coat, across which showed the blue ribbon and star that he had not removed since he had reviewed his forces yesterday.
"Mynheer," he said to M. van Keppel. "Lift the flap and look out——"
The young Dutchman obeyed and a full sunbeam struck across the dim artificial light.
"A fine day," remarked William; he was ever fond of sun and warmth.
As M. van Keppel stood so, holding back the canvas and gazing over the tents that spread across the plain of the Meuse, a gentleman, armed on back and breast with a gold inlaid cuirass, wrapped in a black silk mantle and carrying a hat covered with white plumes, rode up, dismounted, and entered the King's tent without a word of ceremony.
M. van Keppel bowed very respectfully; it was the Earl of Portland.
On seeing the King alone with the young officer his face darkened; he answered the King's greeting of unconscious affection with stern brusqueness.
"There are letters from England—I met the messenger," he said, and laid the packet on the table by the wine-glasses.
Joost van Keppel was quick to see the instant shock that William quivered under, and to perceive the cause of it. When last the King had been at the war not a post had arrived from London without a letter from the Queen. The young man thought Portland had acted with some harshness; he came forward and said impulsively—
"Letters from England, my lord, are not of such importance that they cannot wait till after the battle."