g entered into
his artifice. He went away, feigning to limp on his right knee, and
keeping his face from the spy.

At the corner of the corridor Margot Poins, an immense blonde and
gentle figure in Lutheran grey, stood back in the hangings. The
Magister Udal leant over her, supporting himself with one hand against
the wall above her head and one leg crossed beneath his gown.

'Come you into my room,' Katharine said to the girl; and to the
magister, 'Avoid, man of books. I will have no maid of mine undone by
thee.'

'_Venio honoris causa_,' he said pertly, and Margot uttered, 'He seeks
me in wedlock,' in a gruff, uncontrolled voice of a great young girl's
confusion, and immense blushes covered her large cheeks.

Katharine laughed; she was sorely afraid of the serving man behind
her, for that he was a spy set there by Viridus she was very sure, and
she was casting about in her mind for a device that should let her
tell whether or no he had known the bishop. The squeaky voice and the
feigned limp seemed to her stratagems ignoble and futile on the part
of a great Churchman, and his mania of plots and counter-plottings had
depressed and wearied her, for she expected the great to be wise. But
she played her part for him as it was her duty. She spoke to the girl
with her scarlet cheeks.

'Believe thou the magister after he hath ta'en thee afore a priest. He
hath sought me and two score others in the cause of honour. Get you
in, sweetheart.'

She pushed the girl in at the door. The serving man sat on his stool;
his shock of yellow hair had never known a comb, but he had a decent
suit of a purplish wool-cloth. He had his eyes dully on the ground.

'As you value your servitorship, let no man come into my room when I
be out,' Katharine said to him. 'Saving only the Father Henry that was
here now.'

The man raised expressionless blue eyes to her face.

'I know not his favours,' he said in a peasant's mutter. 'Maybe I
should know him if I saw him again. I am main good at knowing people.'

'Why, he is from the Sheeres,' Katharine added, still playing, though
she was certain that the man knew Gardiner. 'You shall know him by his
voice and his limp.'

He answered, 'Maybe,' and dropped his eyes to the ground. She sent him
to fetch her some candles, and shut the door upon him.

II

The Queen came to the revels given in her honour by the Lord Privy
Seal. Cromwell had three hundred servants dressed in new liveries:
pike