“This young man is popular—it sometimes seems, Sir William, as if he was heir to the heart of the people——”
“He has the name.”
“The name!—and, with the people, is not that everything? I think nothing weighs against the name. The Prince does little to make himself beloved, but there are those who clamour for him as if he owned his ancestor’s virtues with his ancestor’s titles.” And again M. de Witt repeated, “the name!”
Then, as if resolute to close the subject, he laid his hand familiarly on Sir William’s velvet sleeve.
“Will you not come into the garden?—the gardens, I have two that open into one. But you know too much, my poor trees will be shamed.”
They crossed the room and stepped out of the high window. The young secretary from Guelders leant back in his chair and watched them walking under the elms.
Not a word of their conversation had been lost on him, and now that he could no longer hear what they said he pondered, in his quick yet laborious way, over their previous speech.
He had been in M. de Witt’s service a week. It was in the course of his duty to overhear diplomatic talk, to read, and make notes on, political papers, and, though he had always considered himself well informed, he began to find that what was knowledge in Guelders was ignorance at the Hague.
He reviewed, rather sourly, the change in his feelings this week had brought about. He had been so proud of the post, so grateful for de Groot’s recommendation, so confident of what his own energy and industry would do for him; and now he did not feel at all confident.
Not that his trust in himself was diminished; but he had already begun to doubt if he had taken his services to the best market or pledged himself to the most profitable of masters.