Page:Catherine of Bragança, infanta of Portugal, & queen-consort of England.djvu/168

132 Indeed, Charles had filled Clarendon's ears with reproaches of Catherine's peevishness and ill-humour, and Clarendon was tactless enough to let Catherine understand this. It was only natural that she should deeply resent her husband's complaints of her to another, and be wounded at his blaming her when she knew herself to be the injured one. She interrupted Clarendon abruptly, burst into passionate tears of mortification and anger, and Clarendon found it as well to take his leave, telling her with coldness that "he would wait upon her in a fitter season, and when she should be more capable of receiving humble advice from her servants who wished her well." He then retired, baffled for the moment. Probably it was at this time that he formed the opinion he afterwards expressed of her, that she was hard to manage.

On the following day he again requested an audience with her, and she appointed an hour to receive him in her rooms. She was much more tranquil, and had regained her lost composure, and she began by begging Clarendon to overlook the passion to which she had given way yesterday. She told him that she considered him one of her few friends, from whom she would at all times gladly hear advice, but that "she hoped he would not wonder or blame her if, having greater misfortunes upon her, and having to struggle with greater difficulties than had ever befallen any woman of her condition, she sometimes gave vent to that anguish which was ready to break her heart."

Her humble appeal might have touched an iron heart. Clarendon does not seem to have been moved by it. He merely answered by assuring her of his devotion to her interests, "though it might be his duty to tell her some things which might be ungracious to her." Catherine did not merit his description of her hardness to deal with in her answer. She gently told him "he should never be more welcome than when he told her of her faults." This paved the way