"Nay! your sudden fancy for the evening breeze is entirely my gain, my dear lord," rejoined the Cardinal in his most suave manner; "as a matter of fact I was, even at this moment, meditating how best I could secure an interview with you."
"Yes. Are you not His Grace of Wessex' most intimate friend?"
"I have indeed that honour," replied Everingham stiffly, "but I do not quite understand how----"
"How the matter concerns me?" interrupted His Eminence pleasantly. "An you will allow me, I can explain. Shall we walk along this path? I thank you," he added courteously, as the young man, after a moment's hesitation, turned to walk beside him.
"Have I been misinformed," continued the Cardinal, "or is it a fact that your lordship is about to quit Hampton Court?"
"Only for a very few weeks," rejoined Everingham. "Her Majesty has entrusted me with an amicable mission to the Queen Regent of Scotland. I start for town to-night on my way North."
"Ah! then I am only just in time," said His Eminence.
"In time to correct what we poor mortals are all liable to make, my lord--an error."
"Indeed!" said Everingham, with a touch of sarcasm. "Your Eminence must make so few."
"Nay! but the error this time is none of my making, my lord. 'Tis you, I think, who look upon me as an enemy."
"Oh! . . . your Eminence . . ." protested the young man.
"Well, an antagonist, if you will. Confess that you thought--and still think--that I have been scheming to bring the Duke of Wessex to the feet of Lady Ursula Glynde, his promised wife."
"A scheme in which Your Eminence succeeded over well, I fancy," retorted Everingham bitterly.
"But that is where you are in error, my dear lord; for, believe me, that, at the present moment, my sole desire is to put an insuperable barrier between His Grace and that beautiful young lady."
As the night was dark Everingham could see nothing of His Eminence's expression of face. If he had, he probably would only have seen the same mask of polite blandness which the Cardinal usually wore.
The young man, certes, was no match for these astute Spaniards, who had all the wiles and artifices of diplomacy at their finger-tips; his love for Wessex and the earnestness of his own political views gave him a certain amount of shrewdness, but even that shrewdness was at fault in the face of this extraordinary statement suddenly made by the Cardinal.