"But if those are in favour of greater severity against the heretics, and the King endorses them," persisted the Prince, "will you be the instrument to obey His Majesty?"
"I think that Your Highness knows well enough that I shall be that instrument," replied the Cardinal haughtily.
William of Orange drew back; his expression changed to a look of decision that was almost hard, and this unusual sternness of his dark features so altered him that he seemed a different person. For a second Granvelle glimpsed the man behind the mask of the courtier.
"To do what you speak of doing," said William, "is to ruin the Netherlands. The civil officers will not obey, the population will not submit, you will break commerce and industry—you will provoke a revolution."
"I do not fear that," replied Granvelle; "the Stadtholders are not all like Berghen and Montigny——"
"Nor all like Barlaymont. Do you think such a man as he could do anything?" flashed William.
"I am not afraid," smiled the Cardinal, showing to the full that gentle contempt for his adversaries that they had always found so galling. "As for the grandees——"
"As for the grandees," interrupted the Prince steadily, "we are no longer boys or idle courtiers, as perhaps Your Eminence imagines us, but men, able to play a man's game."
Granvelle's smile deepened.
"I never underrated the abilities of Your Highness," he said, "but you perhaps overrate your own power; and for the people——"