So he refused to
prescribe as he was invited, nor troubled to make a secret of
invitation and refusal.
For awhile, then, Lord Robert had prudently held his hand;
moreover, the urgency there had been a year ago, when that host
of foreign suitors laid siege to Elizabeth of England, had
passed, and his lordship could afford to wait. But now of a
sudden the urgency was returned. Under the pressure brought to
bear upon her to choose a husband, Elizabeth had half-committed
herself to marry the Archduke Charles, promising the Spanish
ambassador a definite answer within a few days.
Lord Robert had felt the earth to be quaking under him; he had
seen the ruin of his high ambitions; he had watched with rage the
expanding mockery upon the countenances of Norfolk, Sussex, and
those others who hated and despised him; and he had cursed that
wife of his who knew not when to die. But for that obstinacy with
which she clung to life he had been the Queen's husband these
many months, so making an end to suspense and to the danger that
lies in delay.
To-night the wantonness with which the Queen flaunted before the
eyes of all her court the predilection in which she held him,
came not merely to lull his recent doubts and fears, to feed his
egregious vanity, and to assure him that in her heart he need
fear no rival; it came also to set his soul Quiver impotent rage.
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