CHAPTER II
THE INTRIGUERS
Florent Van Mander, comfortable after his dinner, sitting at his open window smoking, and watching the people pass up and down the Kerkestraat, was surprised, not disagreeably, by the servant entering his solitude to announce a visitor owning a foreign name she stumbled over.
Hyacinthe St. Croix—Van Mander had known him in Arnheim when he himself was a magistrate’s clerk there, ambitious, with an eye on the Hague, and the Frenchman a half disavowed agent of the Marquis de Pomponne, some one who had travelled the Provinces several times already, observing, noting, making acquaintances and gathering information where he could.
The young secretary called for candles—he had been sitting in the dark—and closed the window.
On the heels of the maid with the lights came St. Croix, better dressed, more self-confident, more assured in manner than formerly.
The two greeted each other formally.
“I did not know that you were at the Hague,” said Van Mander. “How did you find me?”
The Frenchman laid his hat and gloves on one of the high-backed chairs.