"It is he whom we spoke of before dinner," said Foster, as he looked
through the casement; "it is Michael Lambourne."
"Oh, admit him, by all means," said the courtier; "he comes to give some
account of his guest; it imports us much to know the movements of Edmund
Tressilian.--Admit him, I say, but bring him not hither; I will come to
you presently in the Abbot's library."
Foster left the room, and the courtier, who remained behind, paced the
parlour more than once in deep thought, his arms folded on his bosom,
until at length he gave vent to his meditations in broken words, which
we have somewhat enlarged and connected, that his soliloquy may be
intelligible to the reader.
"'Tis true," he said, suddenly stopping, and resting his right hand on
the table at which they had been sitting, "this base churl hath fathomed
the very depth of my fear, and I have been unable to disguise it from
him. She loves me not--I would it were as true that I loved not her!
Idiot that I was, to move her in my own behalf, when wisdom bade me be
a true broker to my lord! And this fatal error has placed me more at her
discretion than a wise man would willingly be at that of the best piece
of painted Eve's flesh of them all. Since the hour that my policy made
so perilous a slip, I cannot look at her without fear, and hate, and
fondness, so strangely mingled, that I know not whether, were it at my
choice, I would rather possess or ruin her. But she must not leave this
retreat until I am assured on what terms we are to stand. My lord's
interest--and so far it is mine own, for if he sinks I fall in his
train--demands concealment of this obscure marriage; and besides, I will
not lend her my arm to climb to her chair of state, that she may set her
foot on my neck when she is fairly seated. I must work an interest in
her, either through love or through fear; and who knows but I may yet
reap the sweetest and best revenge for her former scorn?--that
were indeed a masterpiece of courtlike art! Let me but once be her
counsel-keeper--let her confide to me a secret, did it but concern the
robbery of a linnet's nest, and, fair Countess, thou art mine own!"
He again paced the room in silence, stopped, filled and drank a cup of
wine, as if to compose the agitation of his mind, and muttering,
"Now for a close heart and an open and unruffled brow," he left the
apartment.