Duprès came and stood the other side of the wide hearth; his long black gown, his flat velvet cap, the thick gold chain round his neck, his grave, pallid, and wasted face gave him the air of a scholar long closed from the light, but his restless hands and his reckless eyes were those of a man of action.
"You have heard what is taking place in Brussels?" he asked keenly.
"I hear nothing," said Rénèe, "but the last scraps of gossip from the pages and servants. I never leave the palace and hardly the Princess's apartments."
"I can tell you this," said Duprès, with an air of lively interest, "that the younger nobles, Brederode, Culemburg, Hoogstraaten, De Hammes, have organized a league against the enforcement of the decrees of the Council of Trent. They had a meeting on the very eve of the Parma wedding. What do you think of that?" he added, smacking his lips. "Does it not look like splendid times ahead—confusion, chances, war, perhaps?"
"Is the Prince in this, or Egmont or Hoorne?" asked Rénèe.
"None of those, but the Count Louis—and Egmont's house is as full of heretics as Geneva, while our dear master is hardly a very good Catholic nor a very good loyalist," he added, with a slight, unpleasant smile.
The waiting-woman flushed and felt her heart beating fast.
"I must come to my errand," she said, "before we are interrupted."
"Yes, your errand," repeated Duprès keenly. "But first, lest we misunderstand one another, are you in the confidence of your mistress?"
"As much as anyone is, perhaps," replied Rénèe.