_Gril._ Yes, most wonderful: they are as dear to one another as an old usurer, and a rich young heir upon a mortgage. The king is very loyal to the Guise, and the Guise is very gracious to the king: Then the cardinal of Guise, and the archbishop of Lyons, are the two pendants that are always hanging at the royal ear; they ease his majesty of all the spiritual business, and the Guise of all the temporal; so that the king is certainly the happiest prince in Christendom, without any care upon him; so yielding up every thing to his loyal subjects, that he's infallibly in the way of being the greatest and most glorious king in all the world. _Alph._ Yet I have heard he made a sharp reflecting speech upon their party at the opening of the parliament, admonished men of their duties, pardoned what was past, but seemed to threaten vengeance if they persisted for the future. _Gril._ Yes; and then they all took the sacrament together: he promising to unite himself to them, and they to obey him, according to the laws; yet the very next morning they went on, in pursuance of their old commonwealth designs, as violently as ever. _Alph._ Now, I am dull enough to think they have broken their oath. _Gril._ Ay, but you are but one private man, and they are the three States; and if they vote that they have not broken their oaths, who is to be judge? _Alph._ There's one above. _Gril._ I hope you mean in heaven; or else you are a bolder man than I am in parliament time[18]; but here comes the master and my niece. _Alph._ Heaven preserve him! if a man may pray for him without treason. _Gril._ O yes, you may pray for him; the preachers of the Guise's side do that most formally; nay, you may be suffered civilly to drink his health; be of the court, and keep a place of profit under him: for, in short, 'tis a judged case of conscience, to make your best of the king, and to side against him. _Enter_ KING _and_ MARMOUTIERE. _King._ Grillon, be near me, There's something for my service to be done, Your orders will be sudden; now, withdraw. _Gril._ [_Aside._] Well, I dare trust my niece, even though she comes of my own family; but if she cuckolds my good opinion of her honesty, there's a whole sex fallen under a general rule, without one exception. [_Exeunt_ GRIL. _and_ ALPH. _Mar._ You bid my uncle wait you. _King._ Yes. _Mar._ This hour? _King._ I think it was. _Mar._ Something of moment hangs upon this hour. _King._ Not more on this, than on the next, and next. My time is all ta'en up on usury; I never am beforehand with my hours, But every one has work before it comes. _Mar._ "There's something for my service to be done;"-- Those were your words. _King._ And you desire their meaning? _Mar._ I dare not ask, and yet, perhaps, may guess.