the King my Lord
may atone for it in the peace that shall come.'

'The peace that shall come!' the Lady Mary laughed. 'Oh, God, what
things we women are when a man rules us. The peace that shall come? By
what means shall it have been brought on?'

'I will tell you,' she pursued after a moment. 'All this is cogging and
lying and feigning and chicaning. And you who are so upright will crawl
before me to bring it about. Listen!'

And she closed her eyes the better to calm herself and to collect her
thoughts, for she hated to appear moved.

'I am to feign a friendship to my father. That is a lie that you ask me
to do, for I hate him as he were the devil. And why must I do this? To
feign a smooth face to the world that his pride may not be humbled. I am
to feign to receive the ambassadors of the Duke of Orleans. That is
cogging that you ask of me. For it is not intended that ever I shall wed
with a prince of the French house. But I must lead them on and on till
the Emperor be affrighted lest your King make alliance with the French.
What a foul tale! And you lend it your countenance!'

'I would well----' Katharine began.

'Oh, I know, I know,' Mary snickered. 'Ye would well be chaste but that
it must needs be other with you. It was the thief's wife said that.

'Listen again,' she pursued, 'anon there shall come the Emperor's men,
and there shall be more cogging and chicaning, and honours shall be
given me that I may be bought dear, and petitioning that I should be set
in the succession to make them eager. And then, perhaps, it shall all be
cried off and a Schmalkaldner prince shall send ambassadors----'

'No, before God,' Katharine said.

'Oh, I know my father,' Mary laughed at her. 'You will keep him tied to
Rome if you can. But you could not save the venerable Lady of Salisbury,
nor you shall not save him from trafficking with Schmalkaldners and
Lutherans if it shall serve his monstrous passions and his vanities. And
if he do not this yet he will do other villainies. And you will cosset
him in them--to save his hoggish dignity and buttress up his heavy
pride. All this you stand there and ask.'

'In the name of God I ask it,' Katharine said. 'There is no other way.'

'Well then,' the Lady Mary said, 'you shall ask it many times. I will
have you shamed.'

'Day and night I will ask it,' Katharine said.

The Lady Mary sniffed.

'It is very well,' she said. 'You are a proud and virtuous piece. I will
humble you