"I am prepared to consider anything in reason," replied the Marquis magnanimously.
"I am glad you take that tone," said the Chancellor, "for you see I have a reserve which I should be very loth to use, but which I should be compelled to use, if we failed to agree."
"Well," said the Marquis, smiling with lofty incredulity, "let me hear your terms."
"It is merely that you should hand over to me, without reserve, your daughter's new maid."
"My dear Chancellor, nothing would give me greater pleasure, but my daughter would never consent to such a thing." The Marquis was an old schemer, and at once winded a very cunning attempt to blacken his daughter's character irrevocably in the eyes of the King.
"By all means; I am quite prepared with mine."
"Ah! you think I am so silly as to boast of forces that I do not possess. Wait! I will be franker with you still. I will draw my weapon and show you how bright and sharp it is."
"Listen," hissed Turbo in his ear. "The King does not love your daughter. He loves her maid. None but I know it. Why do you think he used to watch the beggar-maid continually from his windows? Why did he fetch her at the risk of his life and in disguise out of the Liberties? Why did he place her with the most accomplished woman he knew, to be refined and sweetened for him? Why does he sit continually before the old picture in the library? Ha! he thought he was so cunning when he put her with your daughter. He thought no one would guess, if she were under the wing of the woman whom every one thinks is going to be his bride. But I know him. I was not blinded. He means to marry the beggar-maid to spite you all, and because he loves her. Think what his principles are! How he would rejoice to share his throne with one of the lowest of the people! He is a dreamer. You do not know him. He is a dreamer, and it is a thing that has happened here before."
Turbo's infatuation for Penelophon made him believe every word he said, and his intense earnestness was not without its effect upon the Marquis. After his long career of intrigue, De Tricotrin was a man difficult to deceive, and he was also a man to know when another was speaking what he thought to be the truth.
"This is a very serious view to take of the situation, Chancellor," he said, after a short silence. "Pardon me if I cannot adopt it at once. There are difficulties. He did not ask my daughter to receive this girl; it was she that chanced to offer."