"
"Broken-down! Why, you are as brave a gallant as the youngest cavalier in
the King's service," cried Hyacinth. "I would pit my father against Montagu
or Buckingham, Buckhurst or Roscommon--against the gayest, the boldest of
them all, on land or sea. Broken-down, forsooth! We will hear no such words
from you, sir, for a score of years. And now you will want all your wits to
take your proper place at Court as sage counsellor and friend of the
new King. Sure he will need his father's friends about him to teach
him state-craft--he who has led such a gay, good-for-nothing life as a
penniless rover, with scarce a sound coat to his back."
"Nay, Hyacinth, the King will have no need of us old Malignants. We have
had our day. He has shrewd Ned Hyde for counsellor, and in that one long
head there is craft enough to govern a kingdom. The new Court will be a
young Court, and the fashion of it will be new. We old fellows, who were
gallant and gay enough in the forties, when we fought against Essex and his
tawny scarves, would be but laughable figures at the Court of a young man
bred half in Paris, and steeped in French fashions and French follies. No,
Hyacinth, it is for you and your husband the new day dawns.
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