“I will see him here.”
As the servant withdrew, William seated himself before his papers again, handing Florent the packet for M. Bentinck.
“Return as soon as you may and—an easy journey,” he said.
Florent bowed himself out as he would have done from a king’s presence, flushed, with a high beating heart, and well repaid for those tedious three years in Berlin.
William watched the door close, then leant back in his chair.
Papers, drawings, plans and maps were scattered before him. Some of the drawers of the cabinet were pulled open, and the long, fuchsia-shaped, brass handles glittered, where the sun caught them, in stars of gold.
Several books, on mathematics and geometry, were piled together, and upon them was placed a vase in the shape of a Chinese monster holding a single crimson tulip.
The sun, slanting in through the long window, caught this flower and picked it out, like a bell of blood against the dusky background, then fell full on the thoughtful figure of the Prince, outlining it in a misty radiance.
The rest of the room was golden dark, for the heavy curtains were half across the windows, and the light filtered through them in a subdued hue, so that M. de Witt, entering the chamber, had his attention fixed at once by the Prince and the tulip, the objects upon which all the sunshine fell.
With every day now de Witt and this young man he gazed on drifted farther apart. They had not met privately for months.