. It was for this reason that he had long
determined to prevent his brother's marriage with Maria Dolores de
Mendoza. Perez and Dona Ana de la Cerda, on the other hand, feared that
if Don John were allowed to marry the girl he so devotedly loved, he
would forget everything for her, give up campaigning, and settle to the
insignificance of a thoroughly happy man. For they knew the world well
from their own point of view. Happiness is often like sadness, for it
paralyzes those to whose lot it falls; but pain and danger rouse man's
strength of mind and body.

Yet though the King and his treacherous favourite had diametrically
opposite intentions, a similar thought had crossed the minds of both,
even before Don John had ridden up to the palace gate late on that
afternoon, from his last camping ground outside the city walls. Both had
reasoned that whoever was to influence a man so straightforward and
fearless must have in his power and keeping the person for whom Don John
would make the greatest sacrifice of his life; and that person, as both
knew, was Dolores herself. Yet when Antonio Perez entered Philip's
study, neither had guessed the other's thought.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VIII

The court had been still at supper when Adonis had summoned Don Antonio
Perez to the King, and the Secretary, as he was usually called, had been
obliged to excuse his sudden departure by explaining that the King had
sent for him unexpectedly. He was not even able to exchange a word with
Dona Ana, who was seated at another of the three long tables and at some
distance from him. She understood, however, and looked after him
anxiously. His leaving was not signal for the others, but it caused a
little stir which unhinged the solemn formality of the supper. The
Ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire presently protested that he was
suffering from an unbearable headache, and the Princess of Eboli, next
to whom he was seated, begged him not to stand upon ceremony, since
Perez was gone from the room, but to order his coach at once; she found
it hot, she said, and would be glad to escape. The two rose together,
and others followed their example, until the few who would have stayed
longer were constrained to imitate the majority. When Mendoza, relieved
at last from his duty, went towards the supper-room to take the place
that was kept for him at one of the tables, he met Dona Ana in the
private corridor through which the