CHAPTER VIII
THE STADTHOLDER
A heavy mist of sun-filled vapour lay over the camp at Bodegraven.
The vivid green meadows lay flat to the dun-coloured sky. A white cottage with painted shutters, a vine-covered porch, and a garden full of sweet-peas and roses, poppies and herbs, stood by a clump of alders amid the tents and pickets.
Above it floated the Orange flag. In one of its small rooms the young Stadtholder sat, his elbow on the table, his brow in his hand.
M. de Zuylestein and William Bentinck stood by the open window; and Florent Van Mander was speaking with a force and an energy to which he had never before been roused.
“If Your Highness would consider.”
His Highness would consider nothing. Cornelius Triglandt had died in his arms at dawn that day, and already time was closing over the event—but not over the pain.
Van Mander addressed himself to the two gentlemen in the window embrasure.
“I swear to you these overtures were made to me in Zeyst. Will you take no heed of them?”