'that were to carry simplicity
into a throne-room. In a stable-yard it served. But you will not
always find a king among horse-straws.'

'God send I find the King of Peace on a prison pallet,' she answered.

'Why, we are at cross purposes,' he said lightly. He laughed still
more loudly when he heard that the King had threatened her with a
gaol.

'Do you not see,' he asked, 'how that implies a great favour towards
you?'

'Oh, mock on,' she answered.

He leaned forward and spoke tenderly.

'Why, poor child,' he said. 'If a man be moved because you moved him,
it was you who moved him. Now, if you can move such a heavy man that
is a certain proof that he is not indifferent to you.'

'He threatened me with a gaol,' Katharine said bitterly.

'Aye,' Throckmorton answered, 'for you were in fault to him. That is
ever the weakness of your simple natures. They will go brutally to
work upon a man.'

'Tell me, then, in three words, what his Highness will do with me,'
she said.

'There you go brutally to work again,' he said. 'I am a poor man that
do love you. You ask what another man will do with you that affects
you.'

He stood up to his full height, dressed all in black velvet.

'Let us, then, be calm,' he said, though his voice trembled and he
paused as if he had forgotten the thread of his argument. 'Why, even
so, you were in grievous fault to his Highness that is a prince much
troubled. As thus: You were certain of the rightness of your cause.'

'It is that of the dear saints,' Katharine said.... He touched his
bonnet with three fingers.

'You are certain,' he repeated. 'Nevertheless, here is a man whose
fury is like an agony to him. He looks favourably upon you. But, if a
man be formed to fight he must fight, and call the wrong side good.'

'God help you,' Katharine said. 'What can be good that is set in array
against the elect of God?'

'These be brave words,' he answered, 'but the days of the Crusades be
over. Here is a King that fights with a world that is part good, part
evil. In part he fights for the dear saints; in part they that fight
against him fight for the elect of God. Then he must call all things
well upon his side, if he is not to fail where he is right as well as
where he is wrong.'

'I do not take you well,' Katharine said. 'When the Lacedaemonians
strove with the Great King....'

'Why, dear heart,' he said, 'those were the days of a black and white
world; now we are all grey or piebal