How else could such missions be kept secret at all? It would be a
_secretum commissum_ in any case; as the theologians would say. I can
but repeat what I said in my letter to you; and, if you will think of
it, you will see that it is not likely that any matter of importance
would be entrusted to a young man of my age."

That seemed to quiet him. I have often noticed that to appeal to the
experience and wisdom of a fool is the surest way to content him.

He began then to talk of the Court; and it would not be decent of me to
record even a tenth part of the gossip he told me regarding the
corruption that prevailed in Whitehall. Much of it was no doubt true;
and a great deal more than he told me in some matters; but it came
pouring out from him, and with such evident pleasure to himself, that it
was all I could do to preserve a pleasant face towards him. He told me
of the little orange-girl, Nell Gwyn, who was now just twenty-eight
years old; and how she lived here and there as the King gave her
houses--in Pall Mall, and in Sandford House in Chelsea, and at first at
the "Cock and Pie" in Drury Lane; and how her hair was of a reddish
brown, and how, when she laughed her eyes disappeared in her head; and
of the Duchess of Cleveland, that was once Mrs. Palmer and then my Lady
Castlemaine, now in France; and of the Duchess of Portsmouth, and her
son created Duke of Richmond three years ago; and of the mock marriage
that was celebrated, in my Lord Arlington's house at Euston, seven years
ago between her and the King. And these things were only the more decent
matters of which he spoke; and of all he spoke with that kind of
chuckling pleasure that a heavy country squire usually shews in such
things, so that I nearly hated him as he sat there. For to myself such
things seem infinitely sorrowful; and all the more so in such a man as
the King was; and they seemed the more sorrowful the more that I knew of
him later; for he had so much of the supernatural in him after all, and
knew what he did.

Then presently my Cousin Jermyn began upon the Duke; and at that I
nearly loosed my tongue at him altogether. For I knew very well that the
guilt of the Duke was heavier even than the guilt of the King, since
James had the grace of the Sacraments to help him and the light of the
Faith to guide him. But I judged it better not to shew my anger, since I
was, as the Holy Father had told me, to be "in the world," though
interiorly not of it: a