“I shall keep my eyes and ears alert,” he said. “Good-night.”
“Good-night,” nodded St. Croix. “A sullen brute,” he thought as the door closed on Florent. “But these Dutchmen,”—he shrugged his shoulders,—“one must use them as one finds them.…”
Florent Van Mander cared nothing what impression he had made; his one desire was to get away, to be alone. He welcomed the cold white fog after the brightly lit parlour and the intolerable Frenchman sitting there over his wine. He hated it and all it symbolised; hated it so suddenly and so bitterly that he could not have stayed a second longer in the company of the man whom, for his own ends, he was serving.
Such emotions were quite new to him; he could not understand them. He had always despised people who allowed sentiment to interfere with ambition. One could not be great by following a falling cause.… What should it matter to him, a diplomat, whether he was paid by England or France or Holland, so he achieved his aim?
Fortune was not attained by sitting in M. de Witt’s Cabinet, like M. Van den Bosch; and the Grand Pensionary had not inspired Florent with any great enthusiasm or admiration. He had judged him coldly, seen failure ahead of him, and decided not to entangle his fortunes with the Republican Government. But nevertheless he felt this strange wrath, and distaste, against himself and what he did. It was as if something had suddenly touched and aroused feelings that lay so deep he did not know till now that he possessed them.
The Seven Provinces an appanage of France—they who had been the richest nation in Europe——
Florent checked his thoughts, wondering what had put into his mind—this folly.
Almost he imagined that the brief moment in which he had looked into the eyes of William of Orange had awakened him to this uneasy questioning. Yet that made double folly, since the Prince himself was but the tool of France, intriguing with de Pomponne—truckling to Louis.…
He had walked through the mist, along the Spuistraat, with no thought of his destination, but when he reached the Binnenhof he pulled himself up and stopped.
The lamps showing at intervals on their red posts displayed the fog in great pale circles, but their light did not penetrate far, and Florent realised that he began to take note of what he was doing in a thick, hurrying darkness of vapour no moon could pierce. The canal had ceased, and he knew that he must be by the Binnenhof. No one seemed abroad; the fog gave the effect of complete isolation.