This afternoon, as he walked through the gallery, he found that the conversation was more serious than was either seemly or usual. On all sides was talk of the Triple Alliance with Holland and Spain which the King had signed but a few weeks ago. No one could quite understand why Charles had done this, but nearly everyone was pleased. Uneasy patriots who feared the French King’s yoke saw in this new bond a safeguard against France and a safeguard against the attacks of the Dutch; while the fervent religious party who had murmured at the King’s marriage to a Papist and at his good-humoured toleration of the Catholic religion thought this Protestant alliance a proof of Charles’ good faith.
The King occupied himself so little with affairs that many of the men who surrounded him came to the conclusion that he had had no mind of his own in the matter, but had blindly followed his ministers’ instructions. Others who had more insight into the King’s nimble, competent brain confessed themselves at a loss to explain his concurrence with a bond which must surely be disadvantageous to himself. These were his intimates; men who had some conception of the King’s friendship with his cousin Louis, and a knowledge of the condition of his private purse. They wondered, and surmised, and exchanged glances, but they were few in number, and the majority of men thought the King an indolent prince with no head for business and certainly no taste for intricate intrigue.
It seemed that the only man at Whitehall that afternoon who neither wondered nor surmised but who was content to receive the news placidly and without argument, was, as usual, Lord Roxhythe. He spent his time turning aside solemn questions as to his opinion of the bond by a series of flippant rejoiners. He grew weary at last of trying to turn men’s thoughts into lighter and more congenial channels, and withdrew to the side of Mrs. Chester, one of the Queen’s ladies. There he remained, and was exchanging languid badinage with her when a page broke in on the gathering about the lady’s couch and bowed low.
His Majesty desired my lord to go to him at once.
It was no unusual thing for Charles to summon his favourite to him privately, and no one thought it a matter for suspicion; not even Sir Thomas Killigrew who was unreasonably jealous of his rival.
My Lord Roxhythe cast an appealing glance at Mrs. Chester, and rose.
“Oh well, sir!” shrugged the lady with a little moue of pretended anger. “I know you will never stay by my side when His Majesty calls!”
“Sweetheart,” retorted Roxhythe, audaciously, “I would stay by your side as I could, but seeing that I may not, how can I?”
Mrs. Chester laughed immoderately at this, flirting her fan.
“You confound me with your woulds and coulds, sir! I know not the answer to your riddle, yet if I command your company … ?”
“Then on two sides my company is demanded, and on the both by Royalty.”
“How?” she dimpled.
“Why, Fairest, if His Majesty is King of England, you are the Queen of Beauty, and I know not whose claim be the stronger.”
As Mrs. Chester was no more than ordinarily good looking, this fulsome compliment pleased her very much.
“And so what would you do?”
“I would compromise, sweet.”
“Compromise! I do not think I like the word. But how?”
Roxhythe picked up his hat and gloves and bowed.
“I would take you with me to His Majesty so you might both have my company.”
Her laughter followed him across the gallery as he walked in the wake of the page to the King’s private closet.
Charles sat at his desk, his chin in his hand, but at Roxhythe’s entry he rose and came forward, hands outstretched.
Roxhythe took them in his, carrying them to his lips.
“Ye are recovered from your indisposition, Davy?” asked the King affectionately. “Do you know that ’tis five days since I have seen you?”
“Do I not, Sir!” smiled Roxhythe.
“And even now I have to send for you because you do not come! What ill usage is this, David?”
“None, Sir,” was the prompt reply. “I have been a suppliant at your door, and turned away because that Your Majesty was greatly occupied with State affairs.”
“They had no orders to turn you away, David! Odds-life, but one would think the business of more account than you!”
“One might,” conceded Roxhythe, and laughed. “They would have announced me, but hearing of Your Majesty’s occupation, I forbad them.”
“You think so much of business!” sighed the King. “Well, I have been with my nose to the grindstone all the morning and I am not finished with it yet. Sit down, Davy!” He returned to the desk.
Roxhythe chose a seat opposite him and laid down his hat.
Charles’ heavy face was overcast. His melancholy eyes, resting on the favourite’s face, were frowning. Roxhythe raised his brows, and leaned back in his chair.
“David,” said the King, at last, “I am in something of a quandary.”
Roxhythe said nothing.
“If I do not obtain money soon I am like to be in a worse one. This Dutch alliance is of no use to me.”
“Well, we always knew that, Sir. You’ve commands for me?”
“A request.”
“Name it, Sire.”
“Gently, Roxhythe! There is much ye must understand first.”
Roxhythe drew closer to the desk.
“This is a secret matter, Sir?”
“For the present, yes. David, the matter is this: very soon I must have means, or I fall. The Commons will grant me nothing, nor will I ask them. There is Louis. …” He paused.
Roxhythe made a little gesture of distaste.
“You are adverse from dealing with the French King, ah? Well, so am I. I’ve no mind to bear his yoke on my shoulders, for I believe it would tax my ingenuity to its uttermost to outwit him. That he would jump to the movement of my finger
