"My God!" he cried, "I was a fool to trust France. I should have known! I should have known!"
A colour was in his face, his eyes were brilliant, his breast heaved.
"Their effrontery!" he cried again; "their shameful effrontery! I did not think even they would have broken a solemn treaty made in the face of the whole world! I must confess I am a dupe," he added proudly, "but if faith and honour are to be disregarded 'tis easy to cheat any man."
He sank back on the window-seat and pressed his hand to his forehead.
"They think I am a cipher now—a King without an army—a dying man, but I am he who met them single-handed once and could again." His voice, broken and weak as it was, expressed an extraordinary enthusiasm and resolution. "France shall pay for this. I will commit Europe to demand payment, even if I do not live to see it given. Dear Lord! doth Louis think that while I draw a breath a Bourbon shall rule over Spain, the Netherlands, Milan, Sicily—the Indies?"
He rose and began to walk about; his eyes had flashed no brighter in his youth. He clasped his sword-hilt and half drew it from the scabbard.
"The sword, the sword!" he said, "no way but that. Did I not ever say so? The sword shall bring them to their knees yet; that is the only way to deal with France."
Sunderland sat silent. He was appalled at the thought of the task before the King if he would resist the aggressions of Louis; for the English were in no humour for another war, and had been from the first inclined to the King of Spain's will, not the Partition Treaty—principally, perhaps, because William had framed the latter.
My lord ventured to hint some of this.
"I know," answered William quietly. "The blindness here is incredible—the ignorance, the malice, astonishing. It is the utmost mortification to me that I cannot at once act with the rigour I should, but I have performed some hard tasks before. I must bring England into this. And there is the Republic—when did she fail? She is with me always."