"For the rest, all is dead—here," he lightly touched his heart. "You alone have the power to hurt me, and you should use it tenderly."
Portland had meant to resign his position in the King's household, so intolerable had it become to him, but now restrained himself.
"I will serve you till death," he said, with his air of cold, high breeding. "Your Majesty must believe that of me."
William gave a little sigh.
"What of this Congress at Ryswick?" added Portland, "and your suggestion that I should see M. de Boufflers?"
He thought that it would be something of a compromise if he could still continue to serve the King yet get away from the odious van Keppel.
"They will never do anything at Ryswick," answered the King wearily. "They fill their time with ceremonies and vexations, and this time a hundred years might find them still arguing there. And I am resolute for peace now as all my life I have been resolute for war. No need to explain my policy to you. We shall never get better terms than France offereth now, and they must not be lost through the intolerable impertinences of Spain, who hath contributed nothing but rigmaroles to the coalition from the first."
"I think," said Portland, "I could get some satisfaction from M. de Boufflers."
The French Maréchal had formed a friendship with Portland when he had been his prisoner at Huy, after the fall of Namur, and it had recently occurred to William to use this friendship to open negotiations between England and France, regardless of the formal mummeries of the Congress, which seemed to be likely to be as protracted as that held at Nymwegen in '79.
It was William's object to discover if Louis was in earnest. The listlessness of Spain, the ambition of the Emperor must bow if once France, England, and Holland came to terms. What he proposed was daring and unconstitutional. He had not informed a single English politician of his plan, and Portland, whom he thought to employ, was not even an Englishman, but William was never stopped by any fear of responsibility. If he could accomplish an honourable peace (the very best he could obtain he knew would be only a breathing space, for there was the tremendous question of the Spanish Succession ahead), he cared nothing for the temper of the English parliament or the complaints of the allies, and in the United Provinces he was practically absolute. He had before suggested to Portland that he should write and open negotiations with Boufflers, and had mentioned Hal, midway between Brussels and Mons, as a likely place for an interview. He now, on Portland's words, reverted to this and discussed the details of the scheme that was to give peace to Europe in his weary, low, and strained voice, broken by constant coughs.