“You are an able man, Mynheer Fagel. I think you will be of great service to the Prince and the country, but for me you can do nothing … there is no more to be said.”
The Secretary smoothed the bands at his wrists, slightly coloured, and bit his lip.
Hesitating, he glanced sideways at the Grand Pensionary once or twice.
John de Witt had turned his eyes away, and by his demeanour seemed not to know there was another with him in the room.
At last Gaspard Fagel gathered up his hat and cane and left the quiet library without another word.
John de Witt kept his gaze still on the sky.
The leaves, and the chinks of it seen between them, took on a thousand different, changing shapes—gold, green, and blue.
The sun reached the glossy box hedges in tendrils of spangled light and gilded the tulips (over-blown now and ragged) with a keen yellow.
The Grand Pensionary’s vision was bounded by a deep red beech tree, through whose heavy branches the sky appeared bright and pale, and in the shadow it threw, two ash-coloured doves were walking on the smooth sweep of close grass.
John de Witt felt so weary that there was a pain even in resting, a disquietude in gazing at the pictured peace of the high-walled garden.