"Wherefore have you bidden him to London, madame?" she asked.
"That he may answer the charges that will be brought against him," said the Queen.
"And you have persuaded him to this!" cried the Countess. "I did think that I might have counted you and His Majesty among my lord's friends!"
Henriette Marie picked up a knot of white silk and began to disentangle the twisted strands.
"The Earl hath His Majesty's assurances and mine, of friendship and protection," she said with dignity touched with coldness.
Lady Strafford stood silent, utterly dismayed and bewildered. It seemed to her incredible that the King should have asked his hated minister to come to the capital at the moment when the popular fury against him had reached full height and the Commons were on the eve of impeaching him. She did not, could not, doubt that the King would wish to protect his favourite, but she felt an awful doubt as to his power. Had he not been forced to call the Parliament at the demand of the people?—was it not to please them that he had sent for the Earl?—so what else might he not consent to when driven into a corner!
The Countess shuddered; she thought of the angry crowd who had chased Laud from Lambeth Palace, who daily hooted at and insulted her when she went abroad, of the useless train-bands, of the general bottomless confusion and tumult, and she saw before her with a horrid vividness, the calm, weary face of John Pym, the man who led the Commons.
The Queen surveyed her narrowly, and observed the doubt and terror in her face.
"Are you afraid?" she asked. "Is it possible you think the King cannot protect his friends?"