he
Catholic cause, and know the world too; and men's minds. Do you think I
should go or stay?"

"Sir," I said, "my opinion is that you should go. There is a quantity of
disaffection in town. I have met with a good deal of it myself. If Your
Royal Highness is to be seen continually going about, that disaffection
will be kept alive. Men are astonishingly stupid. They act, largely,
upon that which they see, not on that which they know: and by going to
Scotland you will meet them both ways. They will not see Your Highness
at all; and all that they will know of you is that you are doing the
King's work and helping the whole kingdom in Edinburgh."

"But they say I torture folks there!" said the Duke.

"They say so, Sir. They will say anything. But not a reasonable man
believes it."

(It was true, indeed, that such gossip went about; but the substance of
it was ridiculous. Good fighters do not torture; and no one denied to
the Duke the highest pitch of personal courage. He had fought with the
greatest gallantry against the Dutch.)

He said nothing to that; but sat brooding.

His closet was a very magnificent chamber; but not so magnificent as he
who sat in it. He was but just come from supper, and wore his orders on
his coat; but all his dress could not distract those who looked at him
from that kingly Stuart face that he had. He was, perhaps, the heaviest
looking of them all, with not a tithe of Monmouth's brilliant charm, or
the King's melancholy power; yet he too had the air of command and more
than a touch of that strange romance which they all had. Until that
blood is diluted down to nothing, I think that a Stuart will always find
men to love and to die for him. But it was Stuart against Stuart this
time; so who could tell with whom the victory would lie?

So I was thinking to myself, when suddenly the Duke looked up.

"Mr. Mallock," he said, "I hear that you have a very persuasive manner
with both men and women. There is an exceedingly difficult commission
which I wish you would execute for me. You have spoken with the Duchess
of Portsmouth?"

"Never, Sir," I said. "I have seen Her Grace in the park only."

"Well; she has thrown her weight against me with the King. God knows
why! But I wonder you have not met her?"

"Sir, I never go to Court, by His Majesty's wish."

"Yes," he said. "But Her Grace is the King's chief agent in his French
affairs; and you are in them too, I hear. But that is His Majesty's way