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.

King. ’Tis searching there where heaven can only pry,
Not man, who knows not man but by surmise;
Nor devils, nor angels of a purer mould,
Can trace the winding labyrinths of thought. 
I tell thee, Marmoutiere, I never speak,
Not when alone, for fear some fiend should hear,
And blab my secrets out.

Mar. You hate the Guise.

King. True, I did hate him.

Mar. And you hate him still.

King. I am reconciled.

Mar. Your spirit is too high,
Great souls forgive not injuries, till time
Has put their enemies into their power,
That they may shew, forgiveness is their own;
For else, ’tis fear to punish, that forgives;
The coward, not the king.

King. He has submitted.

Mar. In show; for in effect he still insults.

King. Well, kings must bear sometimes.

Mar. They must, till they can shake their burden off; And that’s, I think, your aim.

King. Mistaken still:  All favours, all preferments, pass through them; I’m pliant, and they mould me as they please.