The Queen assented, and now he could not prevent her kissing his hand.  Then she seized the dainty little bell on the table to ring for the valet Adrian; but the Emperor Charles stopped her with the exclamation: 

“Never mind him.  I will go with you as I am, if you do not object to sharing your meal with such a scarecrow of a man.  Only permit me to lock up these papers.”

“From Rome?” asked the regent eagerly.

“That is easily discerned,” replied the Emperor.  “New and amazingly favourable promises.  Nothing is required of me except the trifling obligation to allow the Protestants nothing in religious affairs which the Pope or the Council do not approve.  If I agree to accept the promises, every one will think that I have the advantage, and yet, if the contract is made, it is tearing from the sky the political polestar of many a lustrum, and burying one of my clearest, ripest, most sacred hopes.”

Here the startled Queen interrupted him:  “That would surely, inevitably be the evil fruit which would grow from such a treaty.  It would deliver to the Pope, with fettered hands, this very Council which your Majesty so confidently expected would remove or diminish, in orderly methods, the abuses which are urging so many Christians to abandon the Catholic Church.  How often I have heard even her most faithful sons acknowledge that such abuses exist!  But if you make the alliance, the self-interest of the hierarchy will know how to prevent the introduction of even a single vigorous amendment, and, instead of the conqueror of the hydra of abuse, your Majesty will render yourself its guardian.”

“And,” added the Emperor affectionately—­he still retained his seat at the writing table—­“this alliance, moreover, would force me to the painful necessity of opposing the earnest wish of the dearest, fairest, and wisest of my sisters.”

“Because it would render war with the evangelical princes inevitable,” cried the Queen excitedly.  “Oh, your Majesty, you know that the heretical movement, which is making life a burden to me in my provinces, is going much too far for me, as well as for you here in Germany; nay, that it is hateful to me, because I value nothing more than our holy Church, her greatness and unity.  But would it really redound to her welfare if the schism now existing, and which you yourself expected to heal through the Council, should by this very Council be embittered and even perhaps perpetuated?  For a long time nothing has seemed to me more execrable than this war.  Your Majesty knows that, and therefore my lord and brother can not be vexed with me if I remind him of the hour when, a few months ago, he promised to avoid it and do all in his power to bring what relates to religious matters in these German countries to a peaceful conclusion.”

The Emperor looked his sister full in the face, and, while struggling to his feet, said with majestic dignity: