gust for all that surrounded me seized on my
mind, displacing the zest of adventure and the excitement of enterprise.
But let me not set my virtue too high. It is better to be plain. Old
maxims of morality, and a standard of right acknowledged by all but
observed by none, have little power over a young man's hot blood; to be
stirred to indignation, he must see the wrong threaten one he respects,
touch one he loves, or menace his own honour and pride. I had supported
the scandals of this Court, of which I made a humble part, with shrugs,
smiles, and acid jests; I had felt no dislike for the chief actors, and
no horror at the things they did or attempted; nay, for one of them, who
might seem to sum up in her own person the worst of all that was to be
urged against King and Court, I had cherished a desperate love that bred
even in death an obstinate and longing memory. Now a change had come
over me; I seemed to see no longer through my own careless eyes, but
with the shamed and terrified vision of the girl who, cast into this
furnace, caught at my hand as offering her the sole chance to pass
unscathed through the fire. They were using her in their schemes, she
was to be sacrificed; first she had been chosen as the lure with which
to draw forth Monmouth's ambitions from their lair, and reveal them to
the spying eyes of York and his tool Carford; if that plan were changed
now, she would be no better for the change. The King would and could
refuse this M. de Perrencourt (I laughed bitterly as I muttered his
name) nothing, however great; without a thought he would fling the girl
to him, if the all-powerful finger were raised to ask for her. Charles
would think himself well paid by his brother king's complaisance towards
his own inclination. Doubtless there were great bargains of policy
a-making here in the Castle, and the nature of them I made shift to
guess. What was it to throw in a trifle on either side, barter Barbara
Quinton against the French lady, and content two Princes at a price so
low as the dishonour of two ladies? That was the game; otherwise, whence
came M. de Perrencourt's court and Monmouth's deference? The King saw
eye to eye with M. de Perrencourt, and the King's son did not venture to
thwart him. What matter that men spoke of other loves which the French
King had? The gallants of Paris might think us in England rude and
ignorant, but at least we had learnt that a large heart was a
prerogative of royalty which