Or perhaps he is merely timid, reflected Florent, crushing scornfully down the rush of pride and unreasonable exaltation he had sustained at the wild idea that the Prince was actually spurning M. de Pomponne.
He stared at the dark, tranquil waters of the Vyver, revealed now in the faint moonshine.
A boy, he sneered to himself, would he possess the wit and courage to undertake unaided this flight to Middelburg? No, he had always shown caution—he would remain under the wing of M. de Witt.
Yet Florent found himself pondering over the devotion of Matthew Bromley to his master—Bromley also had once been M. de Witt’s man.
CHAPTER V
THE CHALLENGE
A bar of sunshine fell across the quiet room in the Binnenhof, but it did not touch John de Witt, from head to foot he was in shadow.
The French Ambassador had just left him—a duel of words, an exchange of courtesies; through the formalities one sentence of de Pomponne had leapt.
“If the Prince of Orange gave the signal for a restoration … what would rise to answer it?”