face. He appeared to shake his
head and to bow his immense and bearded form. It brought into her mind
the dangerous visit of Bishop Gardiner. Suddenly he dropped his eyes.

'You see some friends,' Viridus' voice asked beside her.

'Nay, I have no friends here,' Katharine answered.

She could not tell that the bearded spy's eyes were not merely amorous
in their intention, for such looks she was used to, and he was a very
vile man.

'In short,' Viridus spoke, 'it were an excellent action to act in all
things as the Queen does. For fashions are a matter of fashion. It is
all one whether you wipe your fingers on bread-manchets or on napkins.
But when a fashion becometh general its strangeness departeth and it
is esteemed fit for a King's Court. Thus you may earn your bread: this
is your duteous work. Observe the king of the beasts. See how it shall
do its duty before the Queen, and mark the lesson.' His voice
penetrated, low and level, through all the din from below. Yet the men
dressed like gladiators advanced towards the dais where the Queen sat
eating unmoved. The lion before her growled frightfully, and dragged
its keepers towards the men in brass. They drew their short swords and
beat upon their shields crying: 'We be Roman traitors that war upon
this land.' Then it appeared that among them in their crowd they had a
large mannikin, dressed like themselves in brass and running upon
wheels.

The ladies pressed the tables with their hands, making as if to rise
in terror. But the mannikin toppling forward fell before the lion with
a hollow sound of brass. The lean beast, springing at its throat, tore
it to reach the highly smelling flesh that was concealed within the
tunic, and the Romans fled, casting away their shields and swords. One
of them had a red forked beard and wide-open blue eyes. He brought
into Katharine's mind the remembrance of her cousin. She wondered
where he could be, and imagined him with that short sword, cutting his
way to her side.

'That sight is allegorically to show,' Viridus was commenting beside
her, 'how the high valour of Britain shall defend from all foes this
noble Queen.'

The lion having reached its meat lay down upon it.

Katharine remembered that Bishop Gardiner said that her cousin must be
begone. She tried to say to Viridus: 'Sir, I would fain obey you in
these things, but I have a cousin that shall much hinder me.'

But the applause of the people below drowned her voice and