William clenched his hand on the table.
“M. de Witt!” he cried passionately. “Will he never cease to thwart me, to humiliate and insult me?… He must go … he must break if he will not bend … by Heaven! he must.… How dare he——”
His words were checked by a cough; he shook as if in bodily pain, and pressed his hand to his shining corselet over his heart.
“What I have endured—what I have taken—never worse than this—to send those two——”
“It was very insolently done,” said M. Bentinck hotly.
“It was done in contempt, to show me the cipher that I am——”
He got to his feet in the restlessness of passion; his face was quite colourless, and in his eyes was an agony of bitter emotion.
“They have gone to cringe to Louis! Think of it, William—to cringe to the French while we have a man left who can grasp a gun.” Again his cough took him, and he had to hold his side. “Van Odyk, too——”
“He goes to represent Your Highness, I do think.”