With all this they must give each other the accolade: they were equals; they must embrace as equals. So the arms of the one man, bowed down and obeisant with his head (a large wig upon it), were spread out, inviting, upon either side of his body, the right hand holding the large plumed hat, the left hand making gestures with its fingers in the air. At last, in such a progress, the two bodies must meet; and so they did. The reception of the one to the other was what we, to-day, mocking such things, might compare to the beginning of a wrestling match. But the onlookers had no such profanity in their minds. For them (and they were right) this strange ceremony was a high symbol. The Great King was treating the ruined Exile as an equal, and some future might be built upon such a foundation. The Stuarts might yet return. For that meeting--to us, as we call up its physical details, grotesque; to them, sublime--might well have been the beginning of a true Restoration, and of an England happier and better than she has been--perhaps less wealthy. It was not so to be. The ceremony was sterile. It bred no issue. There was to come the Boyne, the ’Fifteen, the ’Forty-five--and nothingness; at last a grave in Rome, and that small, noble memorial in St. Peter’s, which I, for my part, never pass without a movement of the heart. The Stuarts were not to return. * * * * * Next day the great king came back to his exiles at St. Germains, and later in the week he came once more. Each time he visited them with an increasing sincerity and fervour of support. He leaned long over the cradle and gazed down at the little Heir of England, with more feeling than he had been known to show in looking at any of his own children. But, high above men, the fates had decided and the stars were set. For business of this sort works out very slowly; and not within the lives of two or three men that meet, but in many generations, are the ultimate purposes accomplished; and though the Stuarts did not return, perhaps they are to watch their revenge. THE MONEY-LENDER (_May 6, 1708_) A fine day in May, and the spring had been early that year. The trees were well out. A soft wind under a benignant sun came up from the valley of the Seine, through the woods, and blessed the formal new greatness of Marly; the splendour and melancholy of the great water-basins, the majesty of the walls, were still new. The trees had not yet that height which adds nobility to the noble lines of the place. But already there was upon it the stamp of so great a reign. Largeness and order and perfection of proportion were everywhere.