"Secrecy," replied the Queen firmly. "She keeps what she has overheard
to herself as closely as a miser guards his gold."

"In order to turn it to account when the favourable moment comes,"
remarked the major-domo. "Your Majesty will also permit me to observe
that if the marquise has already betrayed what was intended to remain
secret----"

"Her boasted reticence can not be very great, you think," interrupted the
Queen. "But justice for all, my handsome lord. At present she is in any
service, and no other. Whose bread I eat, his song I sing--which in this
case means: His secret I keep, and to him I carry whatever I discover.
Besides, this time even the person betrayed owes her a debt of gratitude,
for you know how difficult it is for him to use his limbs, and she is
most obligingly smoothing the path for him. I tell you, Luis, with all
due respect for his Majesty as a general and a statesman, in a skirmish
of intrigue this woman will outwit you all. The schemes her aged brain
invents have neither fault nor flaw. The wheels work upon one another as
they do in the Emperor's best Nuremberg clock. I want to watch their
turning before I go, for, be it known to you, early tomorrow morning--
the saints be praised!--I start for Brussels."

"Oh!" exclaimed Quijada with an expression of sincere regret; but the
Queen gravely said: "There can be no further delay, Luis. It may sound
improbable that there is something which draws me back to the Netherlands
more strongly than the desire for freedom of movement, a pleasant ride
through the forest, and the excitement of the chase, which lends spice to
the insipidity of my life, yet you may believe it."