“He goes because he is afraid of M. de Witt,” flashed the Prince. “If he had loved me he had not gone.”
M. Bentinck looked at his master in affectionate distress, he knew not what to do or say; his own blood beat high at the thought of suing to Louis for peace.
“Oh, heart, heart, what I have taken!” cried William through his teeth. “Ah, to be so powerless, so hedged about, so humbled—hampered always by the inadequacy of others! Had they sent me more men I had not been retreating now—but M. de Witt keeps me starved in my supplies, sets me to build with sand. We do not need these smooth lawyers to feed the arrogance of Louis with their whinings for peace, but more men to send the French back across the Rhine.”
He pulled his gloves off and crushed them in his beautiful right hand.
“If I had had the garrisoning of those Rhine forts,” he said, with a gasping breath, “they had never fallen.… M. de Witt’s paid adventurers came dear, after all his economy.”
The Prince pressed his forehead with a little sound of desperation, then, as was his habit when he had been moved to speak freely, even to M. Bentinck, he fell into a deeper reserve, as if he regretted what he had said.
“Will you take some rest now?” asked M. Bentinck anxiously.
“I will write to M. Fagel—and some other people. I think to fall back on Utrecht to-morrow,” returned the Prince briefly. “Amersfoort is well fortified, and should hold out.”
“Will you see M. Sylvius if he arrives?”
“Yes—and any other messenger from England.”