t Prince.'

'I hail, I felicitate, I bless the day I hear those words,' the Magister
said.

'Therefore,' the King said--and his ears had caught the rustle of
Margot's grey gown--'we will let thee no more be reader to that my
daughter.'

Margot came round the green silk curtains that were looped on the corner
posts of the pavilion. When she saw the Magister her great, fair face
became slowly of a fiery red; slowly and silently she fell, with motions
as if bovine, to her knees at the Queen's side. Her gown was all grey,
but it had roses of red and white silk round the upper edges of the
square neck-place, and white lawn showed beneath her grey cap.

'We advance thee,' Henry said, 'to be Chancellier de la Royne, with an
hundred pounds by the year from my purse. Do homage for thine office.'

Udal fell upon one knee before Katharine, and dropping both cap and
book, took her hand to raise to his lips. But Margot caught her hand
when he had done with it and set upon it a huge pressure.

'But, Sir Chancellor,' the King said, 'it is evident that so grave an
office must have a grave fulfiller. And, to ballast thee the better, the
Queen of her graciousness hath found thee a weighty helpmeet. So that,
before you shall touch the duties and emoluments of this charge you
shall, and that even to-night, wed this Madam Margot that here kneels.'

Udal's face had been of a coppery green pallor ever since he had heard
the title of Chancellor.

'Eheu!' he said, 'this is the torture of Tantalus that might never
drink.'

In its turn the face of Margot Poins grew pale, pushed forward towards
him; but her eyes appeared to blaze, for all they were a mild blue, and
the Queen felt the pressure upon her hand grow so hard that it pained
her.

The King uttered the one word, 'Magister!'

Udal's fingers picked at the fur of his moth-eaten gown.

'God be favourable to me,' he said. 'If it were anything but
Chancellor!'

The King grew more rigid.

'Body of God,' he said, 'will you wed with this maid?'

'Ahi!' the Magister wailed; and his perturbation had in it something
comic and scarecrowlike, as if a wind shook him from within. 'If you
will make me anything but a Chancellor, I will. But a Chancellor, I dare
not.'

The King cast himself back in his chair. The suggested gibe rose
furiously to his lips; the Magister quailed and bent before him,
throwing out his hands.

'Sire,' he said, 'if--which God forbid--this were a Protestant re