"Those are the difficulties of the English," he said. "Mine, you know,"—he brought his fine hand down lightly on the table,—"after all they are—as always—summed up in one word—France."
The manner in which he stressed that name was almost startling in its bitterness, hatred, and challenge.
"Is it possible," asked M. Fagel, who was always at first afraid of the daring schemes of the Prince, "for you to deceive the French?"
"M. D'Avaux is a clever man," answered William grimly, "but Albeville and Sunderland will lull King James, and even I think M. Barillon. My Lord Sunderland," he added, with some admiration, "is the finest, most bewitching knave I have ever met——"
"Then," said M. Dyckfelt, "there are a many at the Court whose interest it is to keep the King deceived—namely, those nobles whose letters of service I brought to Your Highness—and from what I observed of His Majesty he was so infatuate with his own conceptions of affairs as to give scant hearing to good advice."
"That may be," answered M. Fagel. "But will France be so easily beguiled? M. D'Avaux at The Hague itself must suspect."
"He doth already," said William, in a kind of flashing shortness; "but he cannot prove his suspicions."
"Your Highness," asked M. Fagel, still anxious, "must take an army and a fleet with you——"
"You do not think," answered the Stadtholder, "that I would go with a handful of adventurers, like my poor Lord Monmouth?"
"Then," urged the Grand Pensionary, "what is to become of the States with all their defences beyond the seas and you absent?"