y councils and
conferences; at most of them the Duke of Monmouth was present, and he
told me no more than all the Court conjectured when he said that Madame
d'Orleans came with a project for a new French Alliance and a fresh war
with the Dutch. But there were conferences at which he was not present,
nor the Duke of Buckingham, but only the King, his brother (so soon as
his Royal Highness joined us from London), the French Envoy, and
Clifford and Arlington. Of what passed at these my master knew nothing,
though he feigned knowledge; he would be restless when I, having used my
eyes, told him that the King had been with M. Colbert de Croissy for two
hours, and that the Duke of York had walked on the wall above an hour in
earnest conversation with the Treasurer. He felt himself ignored, and
poured out his indignation unreservedly to Carford. Carford would frown
and throw his eyes towards me, as though to ask if I were to hear these
things, but the Duke refused his suggestion. Nay, once he said in jest:

"What I say is as safe with him as with you, my lord, or safer."

I wondered to see Carford indignant.

"Why do you say safer, sir?" he asked haughtily, while the colour on his
cheeks was heightened. "Is any man's honour more to be trusted than
mine?"

"Ah, man, I meant nothing against your honour; but Simon here has a
discretion that heaven does not give to everyone."

Now, when I see a man so sensitive to suspicion as to find it in every
careless word, I am set thinking whether he may not have some cause to
fear suspicion. Honesty expects no accusation. Carford's readiness to
repel a charge not brought caught my notice, and made me ponder more on
certain other conferences to which also his Grace my patron was a
stranger. More than once had I found Arlington and Carford together,
with M. Colbert in their company, and on the last occasion of such an
encounter Carford had requested me not to mention his whereabouts to the
Duke, advancing the trivial pretext that he should have been engaged on
his Grace's business. His Grace was not our schoolmaster. But I was
deceived, most amiably deceived, and held my tongue as he prayed. Yet I
watched him close, and soon, had a man told me that the Duke of York
thought it well to maintain a friend of his own in his nephew's
confidence, I would have hazarded that friend's name without fear of
mistake.

So far the affair was little to me, but when Mistress Barbara came from
London the