slow and gorgeous pageants followed by
brutal and bestial scenes, like the life of a peacock who paces
composedly in the sun and then scuttles and screams in the evening. But
with these two at present there was no occasion for abruptness, and
Ralph, at any rate, contemplated with complacency his own graciousness
and grandeur, and the skilfully posed tableaux in which he took such a
sedate part.

As the spring drew on and the crocuses began to star the grass along the
river and the sun to wheel wider and wider, the chill and the darkness
began to fall more heavily on the household at Chelsea. They were
growing very poor by now; most of Sir Thomas's possessions elsewhere had
been confiscated by the King, though by his clemency Chelsea was still
left to Mrs. Alice for the present; and one by one the precious things
began to disappear from the house as they were sold to obtain
necessaries. All the private fortune of Mrs. More had gone by the end of
the winter, and her son still owed great sums to the Government on
behalf of his father.

At the beginning of May she told Ralph that she was making another
appeal to Cromwell for help, and begged him to forward her petition.

"My silks are all gone," she said, "and the little gold chain and cross
that you may remember, Mr. Torridon, went last month, too--I cannot tell
what we shall do. Mr. More is so obstinate"--and her eyes filled with
tears--"and we have to pay fifteen shillings every week for him and John
a' Wood."

She looked so helpless and feeble as she sat in the window seat,
stripped now of its tapestry cushions, with the roofs of the New
Building rising among its trees at the back, where her husband had
walked a year ago with such delight, that Ralph felt a touch of
compunction, and promised to do his best.

He said a word to Cromwell that evening as he supped with him at
Hackney, and his master looked at him curiously, sitting forward in the
carved chair he had had from Wolsey, in his satin gown, twisting the
stem of his German glass in his ringed fingers.

"And what do you wish me to do, sir?" he asked Ralph with a kind of
pungent irony.

Ralph explained that he scarcely knew himself; perhaps a word to his
Grace--

"I will tell you what it is, Mr. Torridon," broke in his master, "you
have made another mistake. I did not intend you to be their friend, but
to seem so."

"I can scarcely seem so," said Ralph quietly, but with a certain
indignation at his hea