His grace, the dauntless, honest George Monk, who all his life had trodden so firmly the path of rectitude, who feared no man, not even excepting the King whom he had made, lowered his proud, grave eyes before this termagant’s angry glance. He was a great soldier, as you know. Single-handed once he had faced a mutinous regiment in Whitehall, and quelled its insubordination by the fearless dominance of his personality. But he went in a dread of his boisterous vulgar duchess that was possibly greater than the dread in which any man had ever gone of him.
“You see, my love, according to my lights....” he was beginning uneasily.
“Your lights quotha!” she shrilled in scorn. “Mighty dim lights they be, George, if you can’t see to help a friend by them.”
“I might help him to the gallows,” he expostulated. “Have patience now, and let me explain.”
“I’ll need patience. God knows I shall! Well, man?”
He smiled, gently, as if to show that he used gentleness from disinclination to assert his mastery. As best he could, seeing that he was subjected the while to a running fire of scornful interruptions, he made clear the situation as already he had made it clear to Holles.
“Lord, George!” she said, when he had finished, and her great red face was blank. “You are growing old. You are not the man you was. You, a kingmaker! La!” She withered him with her scorn. “Where are the wits that helped King Charles Stuart back to his own? You wasn’t put off by the first obstacle in they days. What would ye be without me, I ask myself. It needs me to help ye see how ye can help a friend without bringing him under notice of them as might do him a hurt.”
“If you can do that, my dear....”
“If I can? I’d ha’ my brains fried for supper if I couldn’t. I would so—damme! For ’tis all they’d be good for. Is there no commands in your bestowing but commands here at home?”