'It hath been said already.'
'But not,' Lascelles said, 'since she came to be Queen.'
The Archbishop directed upon him his hang-dog eyes, and his voice was
the voice of a man that would not be disturbed from woeful musings.
'What use?' he said bitterly; and then again, 'What use?'
Lascelles wrote on sedulously. He used his sandarach to the end of the
page, blew off the sand, eyed the sheet sideways, laid it down, and set
another on his writing-board.
'Why,' he brought out quietly, 'it may be brought to the King's
Highness' ears.'
'What way?' the Archbishop said heavily, as if the thing were
impossible. His gentleman answered--
'This way and that!' The King's Highness had a trick of wandering about
among his faithful lieges unbeknown; foreign ambassadors wrote abroad
such rumours which might be re-reported from the foreign by the King's
servants.
'Such a report,' Lascelles said, 'hath gone up already to London town by
a swift carrier.'