"It needed but that!" exclaimed the King. "Yet it needed not a further outrage. I had already decided on my course."
He crossed suddenly to the Marquess and grasped him by the embroidered sleeves.
"Ever since Strafford died," he said, struggling with violent emotion, "I have vowed in my heart, by my crown and before God, that Pym and the Parliament should pay! And they shall—to the last drop of blood in their bodies! Let no one ask me for mercy for John Pym, for I would sooner lose my all than lose my vengeance on these rebellious heretics!"
"It were better to strike at once," replied the Marquess, who well knew the King's habit of hesitation, and whose sympathies were with the more reckless counsels of the Queen. "Nor wait until they have gathered strength and courage, or till fear giveth them daring. For I believe they have their suspicions that Your Majesty meaneth to punish them."
"My lord," replied Charles, "you speak with wisdom. You shall not have long to wait. Let me but beguile my Lord Falkland, who is for a compromise with these fellows."
He returned to the fireplace and stood there, shivering, and warming his hands, though not that he was cold; his features had a red, swollen look as if he had lately wept, and his eyes were heavy-lidded and bloodshot.
"My lord," he said, "come to me when Lord Falkland hath gone, and I shall have my project ready."
Before the Marquess could answer, the King's page ushered in Lord Falkland.
The King stood silent, biting his forefinger as the young noble saluted him.
Not without misgiving did Lord Falkland see the Marquess in this closeness with the King. He knew him to be a man of honour and loyalty, but he knew him also to be one of those whose perverse and reckless advice the King most leant on—advice fatal to the peace of the kingdom, my lord thought, despairing of bringing Charles into an alliance with the Puritans when the great Romanist noble thus held his ear. The Marquess on his side regarded Lord Falkland as little better than a mild fanatic, and in his heart likened him, half bitterly, half humorously, to one who, at a bear baiting, should strive to separate the furious animals by Christian reasoning when the stoutest stick made would be scarce sufficient.