He felt himself to be a man whose strength and position were both almost lost, and he was, perhaps, a little indifferent now to what had gone to make his life, but, for the last time, he resolved to sound the mind of the King--on two matters that he, Piper, had much at heart.
“Sire,” he said quietly, “all these princes and potentates come here with one object--to discover your Majesty’s future designs.”
“Yes,” answered Karl, “and you know better than any man that I have disclosed these to no one.”
“I do not seek,” replied the minister, “to endeavor to force your Majesty’s confidence.”
“But you want to know something,” remarked the King, with his sudden, ugly smile.
Count Piper gave the King a straight look.
“I want to know if your Majesty has any thought of returning to Stockholm,” he said, and he could not keep a certain earnestness from his tone.
“That thought is ever uppermost in your mind,” replied Karl, not unpleasantly.
“It is seven years since you left your capital, sire.”
“I do better things than govern Sweden,” replied the King haughtily.
“Ah, sire--these conquests cannot, will not, benefit Sweden. The scope of the war was attained years ago.”
Karl was silent; he narrowed his cold blue eyes and stared at the grave face and commonplace figure of his minister.
“And now you would risk all in a campaign against Russia.”
“And if you lose, it will be disaster for Sweden,” added the Count.
“If I lose?” repeated the King, with rising wrath. “Do you not know that it is impossible for me to lose?”
Karl suddenly laughed, throwing back his head and showing his fierce white teeth.
“You think that the Czar of Muscovy can defeat _me_!” he said.
“Marlborough thinks that you attempt the impossible, sire.”
“What does Marlborough know of my designs?” he demanded.
“It is the common thought that you march on Russia.”
“Let be this matter,” he said sharply. “What I do, I do, and am accountable to no one.”
This was what the Count had expected; he bowed gravely.
He felt a sad certainty that the next subject he had to broach would be received with even more displeasure by the King; he resolved that it should not be on his conscience that he had not made the attempt.
“I would presume to ask one other thing,” he said, with a certain effort.