How had the happiness in which she fancied she saw him revelling been constituted?

The power of the newly awakened experiences bore him away also, and he described no less vividly what he had suffered.

Yes, indeed!  He had not lacked great successes, far-reaching renown, high honours, and some degree of glory.  But what a tale he—­not yet thirty—­now related!  He, the son of an Emperor, the brother of a powerful King, who was adorned by as many crowns as there were fingers on his hand!

He had been King Philip’s servant and useful commander in chief, nothing more.

And now he described the sovereign’s cold nature, unfeeling calculation, and offensive suspicion.  He, Don John, the not all unworthy son of the great Emperor Charles, was not born to obey all his life, and allow himself to be turned to account, worn out, and abused for the benefit of another.  He, too, might lay claim to the right of governing a kingdom of his own as its ruler, benefactor, and Mehrer.

After Lepanto, the crowns of the Morea and Albania had been offered to him.  Then, after he had conquered Tunis for his brother Philip, he had wished to reign over that country as its king.  Had it been ceded to him, large provinces would have been taken from the infidels.  This, it might have been supposed, was sufficient reason for Philip to intrust it to his government.  But although the Holy Father in Rome and other rulers had recognised the justice of these wishes, his royal brother could not be persuaded to grant his just demands, and destroyed these hopes with cruel coldness.  He had not even been induced to recognise him as Infant, as a lawful member of his family.

With trivial pretexts, and promises which he never intended to fulfil, the hypocritical, selfish, niggardly man had repulsed, delayed, and put him off.

So his life had been spoiled by the most cruel disappointments, by a succession of the bitterest wrongs.  Since Lepanto, no pure happiness had bloomed again for him.  He was a miserable, disappointed, ill-treated man, who could never regain his former happiness until he obtained, on his own account, what he himself called greatness, honour, glory, and power.  The gifts, no, the more than well-earned payments for which he was indebted to the King, were only a bodiless shadow, a caricature of these lofty gifts of Heaven.

His mother, alarmed, cried in terror, “What an ambition!”

But Don John, with increasing excitement, exclaimed:  “Yes, mother!  I am so ambitious that, if I knew there was another man who more ardently desired renown and honour, I would throw myself out of this window.  ’Who does not struggle ward, falls back!’ has long been my motto, and I am struggling upward and know the goal.”

A startling suspicion seized Barbara, and with anxious caution she whispered: 

“Do I see aright?  You have learned from Flanders and Brabant how bitterly King Philip is hated there, and you now hope to contend with him for the crown of the Netherlands?  The victory you, my hero, my general, you would surely attain—­” But here she was interrupted.