ped suddenly
downwards.

'Your Grace will have me write a letter to the--to his--to him----'

The downward lines fixed themselves, and from amongst them the
panic-stricken eyes made a dumb appeal to the griffins and crowns of his
dark green hangings, for they were afraid to turn to the King. Henry
retained his heavy look of jocularity: he jumped at a weighty gibe--

'My Grace will have thy Grace write a letter to his Holiness.'

He dropped into a heavy impassivity, rolled his eyes, fluttered his
swollen fingers on the red and gilded table, and then said clearly, 'My.
Thy. His.'

When he was in that mood he spoke with a singular distinctness that came
up from his husky and ordinary joviality like something dire and
terrible--like that something that upon a clear smooth day will suggest
to you suddenly the cruelty that lies always hidden in the limpid sea.

'To Caesar--egomet, I mineself--that which is Caesar's: to him--that is to
say to his Holiness, our lord of Rome--the things which are of God! But
to thee, Archbishop, I know not what belongs.'

He paused and then struck his hand upon the table: 'Cold porridge is thy
portion! Cold porridge!' he laughed; 'for they say: Cold porridge to the
devil! And, since thou art neither God's nor the King's, what may I call
thee but the devil's self's man?'

A heavy and minatory silence seemed to descend upon him; the
Archbishop's thin hands opened suddenly as if he were letting something
fall to the ground. The King scowled heavily, but rather as if he were
remembering past heavinesses than for any present griefs.

'Why,' he said, 'I am growing an old man. It is time I redded up my
house.'

It was as if he thought he could take his time, for his heavily pursed
eyes looked down at the square tips of his fingers where they drummed on
the table. He was such a weighty man that the old chair in which he sat
creaked at the movement of his limbs. It was his affectation of courtesy
that he would not sit in the Archbishop's own new gilded and great chair
that had been brought from Lambeth on a mule's back along with the
hangings. But the other furnishings of that Castle of Pontefract were as
old as the days of Edward IV--even the scarlet wood of the table had
upon it the arms of Edward IV's Queen Elizabeth, side by side with that
King's. Henry noted it and said--

'It is time these arms were changed. See that you have here fairly
painted the arms of my Queen and me--Howard and