Heated by the wave of inner exaltation that shook him he lightly touched his great grey horse and took the avenue at a gallop, drew rein at the villa steps, and blew a little whistle he carried. When the groom came he dismounted, and entering the private garden by the door in the wall to the right of the house walked slowly to the covered alley where he had promised to meet M. D'Avaux.
The garden had the same stillness as the wood; the late chilled roses hung motionless on their stems, the curious agave plants and Italian laurels were stiff against the wall, a deep border of St. Michael's daisies showed a hard colour of purple about the three steps of the sundial and the flat basin where the fat carp shook golden gleams under the curling withering water-lily leaves.
As the Prince turned into the walk at the end of the garden, shaded overhead with ilex trees and edged with a glossy border of box, he saw the Frenchman pacing the sunless path.
William touched his hat and the Ambassador bowed. The Prince's sharp glance detected that he was something out of countenance.
"I wonder, M. D'Avaux, what you can have to say to me."
"Yet Your Highness is well able to guess," de Avaux answered, with the air of a compliment.
William looked at him again; he detested all Frenchmen, and since the day when, a grave child of eleven and a state prisoner, he had sat sternly in his coach in the Voorhout, and refused to yield precedence to M. D'Èstrees, he had especially hated the French envoys to the States, who had always been, in the truest sense, his enemies; the only thing that softened him to M. D'Avaux was that diplomat's cleverness. The Prince, who loved a worthy antagonist, admired him for his real wit and skill in the long and bitter game that had been played between them; nevertheless, there was, in the full bright glance he cast on him, a quality that his antagonist did not mistake.
"I fear," added the Ambassador, "that I do not find Your Highness very well disposed towards me."
"This is matter of business, is it not, Monsieur?" answered the Prince. "When you have opened your subject I will discover my disposition to it."
They were walking up and down the long walk; the thick gold sunshine slipped through the ilex branches and flickered on the Frenchman's black satins and the Prince's heavy fur-edged cloak. M. D'Avaux held his hat in his hand, but the Prince still wore his brown beaver.