Father Coleman, infamous or sainted Coleman, as men were soon to call him, sat at the head of a table that was covered, not with papers and epistles, but with dishes of fruit, wineglasses, bottles, comfits, and spiced cakes. The gentlemen about it appeared to have easy consciences and pleasant thoughts. They were debonair, familiar, talkative, very much in the grace of pleasure. The panelling of the room was fanatical and austere, yet the Duchess’s chaplain had cheerful cheeks and vivacious eyes, and bore himself with that easy-flowing worldliness that carries a clever priest into the intimate life of palaces.
It might have been nothing more than a gathering of lords and gentlemen who gossiped over their wine, comparing their views, and exchanging the ordinary news of the day. There appeared to be no elaboration of secrecy, no self-conscious sense of urgent peril. They ladled out punch, or filled their wineglasses, smiling across the table at one another, and listening to little pieces of scandal with the ingenuous cheerfulness of country ladies over their dishes of tea.
All of those present appeared very interested in the breeding of race-horses, and the technicalities of the sport were bandied to and fro, even Father Coleman appearing to be possessed of very pronounced views upon so unpriestly a subject. They talked much of a famed French horse named “Soleil d’Or,” and also of a Dutch stallion whose breed none of the gentry seemed to fancy. There were a great number of noted beasts in the shires whose names and points were familiar to the whole table. “Norfolk Joe,” “Northern Star,” “Jenny of Cheshire,” “Hertford Prince”—such were some of the many titles that John Gore heard passing from mouth to mouth. Being a seaman, he felt himself out of touch with the “horse gossip” of the day. That some gentleman contemplated introducing a stud of French mares into the country was news whose significance was largely lost to him. He knew very little of Italian roans and Spanish jennets, nor why “Oak Apple” should be spoken of as a sire who had not been properly watched.
There was no coarseness in their gossiping, and John Gore, who sat at one corner of the table close to Father Coleman and Hortense, saw no need for either the priest or the lady to look embarrassed. The gentlemen were still intent upon the topic when the Mazarin leaned over the side rail of her chair and drew a plate of grapes toward her.
She cut a small bunch, and began to eat the grapes one by one, doing it so daintily that it was good to watch her white hands and her full red mouth. She glanced now and again at the man beside her with a charming suggestion of coy interest in him that contrasted with the mischievous mood of an hour ago.
“You know more of ships than of horses, Sir John?”
She gave him the title as though it provided her with an excuse for mouthing two very pretty syllables where one might have sounded blunt and clumsy.
John Gore looked at her with his grave eyes and smiled.
“At the Nore you would have heard ships talked of in much the same fashion.”
“Yes. A sea-captain must love his ship as an Arab loves his horse.”