struggle, as if
she were a novice that took an invisible veil--and she uttered only
requests as to the world into which she would withdraw from this one.

'I am not minded to go back to Cleves,' she stipulated; for she had
thought much and long in her stillnesses of what she would have; 'the
Duke, my brother, is to blame for having brought me to this pass.
Moreover, he is not able to defend his lands; so that if, with a
proper establishing and revenue, I go back to Cleves, the Emperor
Charles, who hath a tooth for gold, may too easily undo me. I would
have a castle here in England; for England is an island, and well
defended in all its avenues, and its King a man of honour and his word
to such as never cross him, as never will I.'

She spoke slowly, as if in her mind she were ticking off little notes
pencilled on her tablets; for since she could not read she had a
memory that she could trust to. 'I will have a castle built me not
strong enough to withstand the King's forces, since those I make no
call to withstand, but strong enough to guard me against robber bands
and the insurrections that are ordinary. Upon a slope that shall take
the sun in winter, with trees about beneath which I may sit in the
heat of summer-time. I will have a good show of servants, because I am
a princess of noble lineage; I will have most of them Germans that I
may speak easily with them, but some English, understanding German, so
that the King may be advised I work no treasons against him. From time
to time I will have the King to visit and to talk with me courteously
and fairly as well he can: this in order to counterpart and destroy
the report that I smell foul and am so ill to see that it makes a man
ill----'

Her eyes, resting upon Katharine, closed slightly again with a tiny
malice.

'I will have you not to fear that, upon such visits, I will use wiles
to entrap the King. I do not favour him. I am not content to be queen
of this country. It is as fair as my own country. In summer it is more
cool, in the winter time more temperate. Meats here are good; cooks
are better than with us. What a woman and a princess in this world
would have is here all at the best, save only its men, and the most
dangerous of all its men is the King.'

Katharine's ready anger rose at her words, though before the Queen's
speeches had flowed above her head and left her speechless and
ashamed.

'The King is known throughout Christendom,' she said, 'for the