There was a pause.
The pigeons fluttered away, and up through the sunny leaves.
“Will there be war?” Agneta spoke at length, under her breath.
“I think there will be war.”
John de Witt’s gaze went past his daughter, as if it rested on some threatening vision of the future.
She shyly wiped her tears.
“With France—and England, father?”
“I do fear it, Agneta.”
She shuddered. War was a terrible thing to her, but still more terrible was the anxious bearing of her noble father.