M. Fagel shook his head.
“There is only one man whose voice can be heard now, Mynheer.”
“The Prince?”
“Yes, His Highness the Stadtholder.”
“Then,” declared John de Witt, proudly and calmly, “I will write to him. He will have the nobility to see justice done. He knows that I have not taken the Secret Service money—or——” He made an impatient gesture, “I cannot repeat them—but the Prince knows what manner of man I am.”
“The people will listen to him—but to none other; what he says I think they will credit.”
John de Witt gave a little sigh. The Secretary of the States was slightly uncomfortable in his presence; disconcerted before his utter serenity.
Gaspard Fagel had an uneasy feeling that de Witt’s was the calm of a heart-broken man. He sat looking at the Minister whom he had followed, envied, rivalled, and now supplanted, and his triumph was by no means unalloyed.
The Grand Pensionary turned his full brown eyes on him.