said, 'did tell me that all these things
he ordered and thought out for my pleasuring.'

Norfolk dropped his eyes to the ground.

'Aye,' he said, 'his Grace ordered them and their placing. There is no
man to equal his Grace for such things; but I had the work of setting
them where they are. I would have your favour for that.'

She appeared appeased and gave him her hand to kiss. There was a little
dark mole upon the third finger.

'The last niece that I had for Queen,' he said, 'would not suffer me to
kiss her hand.'

She looked at him a little absently, for, because since she had been
Queen--and before--she had been a lonely woman, she was given to
thinking her own thoughts whilst others talked.

She was troubled by the condition of her chief maid Margot Poins. Margot
Poins was usually tranquil, modest, submissive in a cheerful manner and
ready to converse. But of late she had been moody, and sunk in a dull
silence. And that morning she had suddenly burst out into a smouldering,
heavy passion, and had torn Katharine's hair whilst she dressed it.

'Ay,' Margot had said, 'you are Queen: you can do what you will. It is
well to be Queen. But we who are dirt underfoot, we cannot do one single
thing.'

And, because she was lonely, with only Lady Rochford, who was foolish,
and this girl to talk to, it had grieved the Queen to find this girl
growing so lumpish and dull. At that time, whilst her hair was being
dressed, she had answered only--

'Yea; it is good to be a Queen. But you will find it in Seneca----' and
she had translated for Margot the passage which says that eagles are as
much tied by weighty ropes as are finches caught in tiny fillets.

'Oh, your Latin,' Margot had said. 'I would I had never heard the sound
of it, but had stuck to clean English.'

Katharine imagined then that it was some new flame of the Magister
Udal's that was troubling the girl, and this troubled her too, for she
did not like that her maids should be played with by men, and she loved
Margot for her past loyalties, readiness, and companionship.

* * * * *

She came out of her thoughts to say to her uncle, remembering his speech
about her hands--

'Aye; I have heard that Anne Boleyn had six fingers upon her right
hand.'

'She had six upon each, but she concealed it,' he answered. 'It was her
greatest grief.'

Katharine realised that his sardonic tone, his bitter yellow face, the
croak in his voi