“Then I trust your gracious confidence may not be misplaced.”

“I am about to test it. . .  Tell me, my lord, what is the gravest state problem that confronts me now?”

The Lord Steward’s crafty blue eyes shot a sharp glance at the King, but Richard’s black ones met it half way and drove it back in quick retreat.  Now, Stanley had one weakness.  He was vain of his astuteness and ever ready to display it; and he thought he had discerned instantly what was in the King’s mind.

“Your Majesty means the two Princes—­Edward’s sons,” he said.

Richard’s face showed blank surprise.

“Nay, my lord, I mean nothing in particular,” he said.  “I sought only what, in your opinion, was my chief embarrassment and peril. . .  And you answer:  the young Princes. . .  By St. Paul! you may be right—­give me your reasons.”

Stanley saw his blunder and grew hot with rage.  He had been outwitted; and now, as between him and the King, he must ever bear the burden of having first suggested Edward’s sons as a menace to the State.  The trap was so easy; and yet he had never seen it until it had caught him tight.  And between his anger and the strange influence which Richard exercised over all men when in his presence, he blundered again—­and worse than before.

“When, since time began,” he asked, “has a new King had peace or comfort while his supplanted predecessor lived to breed revolt?”

Richard seized the opening instantly.

“Great St. George!  You do not urge the Princes’ death?” he exclaimed.

And Stanley floundered deeper.

“Holy Mother, Sire, do not misunderstand me,” he answered.  “I urge nothing.  But the problem, as I see it, is, not why to act, but how to refrain.”

“Yet Parliament has declared them bastards and so never eligible to the crown,” Richard objected.

But Stanley had gone too far now to retreat and he pressed on, knowing that he, himself, was incurring little or no danger by the advice.  Richard alone would be responsible if he acted upon it, and all the open shame would fall upon him.

“The Beauforts were bastards,” he answered, “and Parliament specifically refused them the royal dignity; yet who, to-day, is Lancaster’s chief and claimant for your Crown but the heir of those same Beauforts?  Pardieu!  Sire, you need not me to tell you that Parliament belongs to him whose writ summons it.”

“I would never countenance it,” the King answered; “and it would surely destroy me if I did.”

Stanley smiled shrewdly.  “Did the Fourth Henry sit less easy on the throne when the deposed Richard died suddenly at Pontefract? . . .  Did John tyrannize the less because of Arthur’s cruel taking off?”

The King arose and paced the floor, looking straight before him.  Stanley watched him furtively, trying vainly to read behind the mask of that passionless face.