He was waiting now, in the King's gallery at Kensington, to intercept and argue with Shrewsbury, whom he knew was about to have an interview with William, and with the object, he suspected, of insisting on his often refused resignation.
He came at last, after his time and slowly, with a languid carriage and an unsteady step that expressed great wretchedness. Sunderland moved out of the embrasure of the window; Shrewsbury paused; and the two noblemen, alike only in birth and country, so totally different in character, intellect, and aim, yet both in the same service, faced one another.
Shrewsbury looked ill, miserable, even slightly dishevelled, his dark clothes were careless and plain, the beauty that had once made him famous as "The King of Hearts" was scarcely to be traced in his strained features, though he was not yet past his first youth. In contrast, Sunderland, though worn and frail, looked less than his years, and was habited very fashionably and gorgeously in black tissue of gold with diamond buttons, his peruke was frizzled and powdered, and he wore a bow of black velvet beneath his chin; his handsome, delicate features wore that expression of watchful, smiling repose which was so seldom from his face that it had come to be one with it, as the faint chiselling on an alabaster bust.
Shrewsbury showed some agitated emotion as the Lord Chamberlain stepped before him.
"I am due with His Majesty," he said.
"I know," answered the earl; "and I think I guess your business with the King."
Shrewsbury paled and said nothing; a defiant look hardened his eyes.
"You," continued the Lord Chamberlain, "are going, my lord, to force your resignation on His Majesty."
"Well—if I am?" Shrewsbury moistened his lips desperately.
"It is, your Grace, a most ill-advised thing to do."