; and in her still voice there was neither
passion, nor pity, nor question, nor resignation.

Katharine raised her eyes: they saw the imprisoned butterfly, but she
found no words.

'You have more courage than I,' the Queen said.

Suddenly she made a single gesture with her hands, as if she swept
something from her lap: some invisible dust--and that was all. Still
Katharine did not move nor speak; she had prepared speeches--speeches
against the Queen's being disdainful, enraged, or dissolved in tears.
She had read in books all night from Aulus Gellius to Cicero to get
wisdom. But here there were no speeches called for; no speeches could
be made. The significance of the Queen's gesture of sweeping dust from
her lap slowly overwhelmed her.

'You have more courage than I,' the Queen repeated, as though slowly
she were making a catalogue of Katharine's qualities to set
dispassionately against her own; and again her eyes moved over
Katharine. With her first swift gesture she drew from the stool-top a
pamphlet of writing, upon which she had sat. Her face grew slowly red.

'It did not need this long writing against my person,' she said. 'I
take it grievously.'

Katharine moved upon her knees as if she had been stung by an
intolerable accusation.

'Before God!----' she began to say.

'Well, I believe you had no part in the writing,' the Queen
interrupted her. 'Yet the more I say you have courage: to wed a man
that will write lies of another woman's body and powers.'

Katharine sat still; the Queen's slow anger faded slowly away.

'I do not see why this King thinks you more fair than I be,' she said
dispassionately; 'but what draweth the love of man to woman is not yet
known.'

Again she repeated:

'There was no need of this writing against me. The King has never
played the husband's part to me; I would have you tell him, if I go in
danger from him, that, for me, he may go his ways. I have no mind to
stay him, nor to be a queen in this country. Here, it is said, they
slay queens.'

'If I will be Queen, it is that God may bless this realm and King with
the old faith again,' Katharine said. Anne's eyelids narrowed.

'It is best known to yourself why you will be Queen,' she said. 'It is
best known to God what faith he will have in this your realm. I know
not what faith he liketh best, nor yet what side of a queen's
functions most commendeth itself unto you.'

She seemed to withdraw herself more and more from any