"By your leave, M. le Marquis, I will post this." William opened the casket M. Dyckfelt had brought from the Chinese bureau, and took out a couple of little linen bags, which he slid along the table towards the crumpled figure of the Ambassador; the glint of gold could be seen between the wide meshes. "The audience is over," he added dryly. M. D’Albeville got to his feet and began to pick up the money and thrust it into the huge flap pockets of his silver-branched coat, making the while little sounds of protest, and shaking his head dismally. "Listen," said the Prince vigorously. "You will give your message to the States to-morrow, and you will send no letters of any kind to England until I request you to——" "I am always the servant of Your Highness," said M. D’Albeville with a dreary submission, yet with a kind of satisfaction in the bribe that lay heavy in his pockets; the Prince always paid better than M. D’Avaux, kept short by M. de Louvois, who disliked him. "All packets leaving our ports are watched," remarked William. "So do not try to send any secret messages to England." The Ambassador picked up his white-plumed hat, that had fallen to the floor, then came towards the Prince with a humble gesture, as if he would have kissed his hand; but William drew back with a haughty disgust that brought a blush even to M. D’Albeville’s brazen cheek. He withdrew backwards, M. Bentinck opened the door for him, and closed it after he had departed, bowing. "By Heaven!" burst out the Landgrave, "to think that a great nation should send as representative such a rascal!" "His Majesty hath always been unlucky, Highness," answered William, "in the gentlemen he sendeth to The Hague. To use such tools!" he added impatiently; "but I think we have checkmated M. D’Avaux.—M. Fagel," he turned swiftly to the Grand Pensionary, "you see your part? The two messages will come the same day, and you are to protest that there must be some secret alliance between France and England that the States have been kept in the dark about, and that we can give no answer till that is explained; you must feign alarm which will further inflame the people against France and her designs, and so we may provoke King James into repudiating the French alliance and offending His Christian Majesty." Having thus indicated the policy that his genius had instantly conceived, he paused with a little cough, then laughed, which he seldom did save when he had discomfited some one. He laughed now, thinking of M. D’Avaux, and there was a malicious note in it that would not have pleased that diplomat to hear. The German princes laughed also, in a more good-natured fashion, and the whole company moved from their places with a sense that a final resolve had been reached. "Come, gentlemen," said the Prince in his tired voice, "I think we have earned our dinner." He handed to M. Fagel the letter written by M. D’Albeville. CHAPTER XI