"Oh yes! I remember! The time is nearly due. See that no one enters in the interim."
Even as he spoke a servant called the secretary and he returned presently, ushering in with profound bows the Archduchess.
Father Lamormain had again spread out the supposed summary of Tilly's despatch before him in a good light. There was nothing else on his table but the inkstand to distract attention.
The Archduchess, who was young and tall and slender with wonderful dark eyes, knelt and kissed the holy father's hand.
As a good Catholic she was bound to reverence her father's confessor.
But Father Lamormain stood for more than that. He had held the same position when she was a mere poppet, marching about with an endless company of gouvernantes and ladies, in an absurd stiff brocade dress, which trailed on the ground just as theirs did, and her little neck surrounded by a ruff, a sweet monstrous epitome of queendom. There had been court functionaries in plenty, great officers of state then as now. But it was Father Lamormain who reigned supreme as the confidential counsellor of the family in all that pertained to the welfare of the house of Habsburg; so that every member of the family of the Emperor understood that Father Lamormain was a benevolent despot, who had always smoothed over all kinds of family troubles. Dimly too they understood that the Emperor himself, though a man by no means deficient in any particular quality of kingship, respected the Jesuit's advice on matters of state.
The Archduchess seated herself. The secretary had withdrawn.
"I should have craved audience of your Highness in your own apartments," said Father Lamormain with great gentleness, "but what I had to say was for your own ears, and I wished not to excite curiosity nor to gratify it."
The Archduchess inclined her head, and with just a perceptible pause said, "Your secretary?"