When Henry was calmed by his pacing in her chamber he came out to her in
the sunlight, rolling and bear-like, and so huge that the terrace seemed
to grow smaller.
'Chuck,' he said to her, 'I ha' done a thing to pleasure thee.' He moved
two fingers upwards to save the Duke of Norfolk from falling to his
knees, caught Katharine by the elbow, and, turning upon himself as on a
huge pivot, swung her round him so that they faced the pavilion. 'Sha't
not talk with a citron-faced uncle,' he said; 'sha't save sweet words
for me. I will tell thee what I ha' done to pleasure thee.'
'Save it a while and do another ere ye tell me,' she said.
'Now, what is your reasoning about that, wise one?' he asked.
She laughed at him, for she took pleasure in his society and, except
when she was earnest to beg things of him, she was mostly gay at his
side.
'It takes a woman to teach kings,' she said.
He answered that it took a Queen to teach him.
'Why,' she said, 'listen! I know that each day ye do things to pleasure
me, things prodigal or such little things as giving me pouncet boxes.
But you will find--and a woman, quean or queen, knows it well--that to
take the full pleasure of her lover's surprises well, she must have an
easy mind. And to have an easy mind she must have granted her the
little, little boons she asketh.'
He reflected ponderously upon this point and at last, with a sort of
peasant's gravity, nodded his head.
'For,' she said, 'if a woman is to take pleasure she must guess at what
you men have done for her. And if she be to guess pleasurably, she must
have a clear mind. And if I am to have a clear mind I must have a maiden
consoled with a husband.'
Henry seated himself carefully in the great chair of the small pavilion.
He spread out his knees, blinked at the view and when, having cast a
look round to see that Norfolk was gone--for it did not suit her that he
should see on what terms she was with the King--she seated herself on a
little foot-pillow at his feet, he set a great hand upon her head. She
leaned her arms across over his knees, and looked up at him appealingly.
'I do take it,' he said, 'that I must make some man rich to wed some
poor maid.'
'Oh, Solomon!' she said.
'And I do take it,' he continued with gravity, 'that this maid is thy
maid Margot.'
'How know you that?' she said.
'I have observed her,' he maintained gravely.
'Why, you could not well miss her,' she answered. 'She is as big as a
plough-ox.'
'I have observed,' he said--and he blinked his little eyes as if,
pleasurably, she were, with her words, whispering around his head. 'I
have observed that ye affected her.'
'Why, she likes me well. She is a good wench--and to-day she tore my
hair.'
'Then that is along of a man?' he asked. 'Didst not stick thy needle in
her arm? Or wilto be quit of her?'
She rubbed her chin.
'Why, if she wed, I mun be quit of her,' she said, as if she had never
thought of that thing.