He recalled now, as he watched the Prince read his letter, with what interest he had followed William’s behaviour in the hands of the republican party. How he and other partisans of the House of Orange had had their hopes half crushed by the Prince’s taciturn gravity and natural reserve, which made it impossible to guess his real designs.
He had grown up in an atmosphere of adversity, been educated in a school of distrust; and the constant necessity he was under of concealing his passions had made him, while yet a child, an adept in dissimulation.
He had never made the slightest attempt to gain the affection or confidence of the faction always loyally supporting his House. He had neither the virtues nor the vices that are loved by the crowd; his life was austere, his tastes sober, he was rarely seen and always silent. Van Odyk was thinking now how little he really knew of him. Twice this boy’s age, and man of the world as he was, he had never drawn more from the Prince than his now almost public intention to claim the inheritance of his family.
The Lord of Beverwaert brought energy, talents, and goodwill to the cause, but little confidence. Of the mighty, almost regal, power that had once belonged to the House of Orange, nothing remained to this young man but the renown of his ancestors, and what force, courage, or strength he might find in himself.
William Van Odyk wondered, and fixed his pleasant blue eyes in such an intent fashion on the Prince that the latter looked up and glanced at him keenly.
“M. de Witt writes at length,” he said, and laid the letter down.
“To what purpose does he write?” asked the Lord of Beverwaert.
William motioned to the chair on the other side of the table.
“Will you not sit, Mynheer?”
Van Odyk took his place opposite to the Prince, and the solitary candle that illuminated them both showed a striking contrast in their persons: the Lord of Beverwaert, florid, fair, his gallant good looks displayed to advantage by his handsome red uniform, his gold baldric and bullion-fringed sash, tall, stoutly built, bearing every sign of easy, pleasant living, with eyes slightly dissipated, and a mouth a little full and soft in contour; the Prince, delicate, and even weakly, in appearance, his green coat flung on carelessly over his laced shirt, wearing riding-breeches and dusty top-boots, drooping a little as he sat with an air of weariness and gravity at variance with his years, yet conveying with every movement the charm of youth and an unconscious aristocratic grace, a precocious maturity stamped on his proud and composed features, yet showing in his brilliant eyes the fire of youthful blood and the energy of a haughty race.