Throckmorton applauded Katharine Howard. And indeed,
Throckmorton applauded Katharine Howard. As policy her speech was
neither here nor there, but as voicing a spirit, infectious and
winning to men's hearts, he saw that such speaking should carry her
very far. And, if it should embroil her more than ever with Cromwell,
it would the further serve his adventures. He was already conspiring
to betray Cromwell, and he knew that, very soon now, Cromwell must
pierce his mask of loyalty; and the more Katharine should have cast
down her glove to Cromwell, the more he could shelter behind her; and
the more men she could have made her friends with her beauty and her
fine speeches, the more friends he too should have to his back when
the day of discovery came. In the meantime he had in his sleeve a
trick that he would speedily play upon Cromwell, the most dangerous of
any that he had played. For below the stairs he had Udal, with his
news of the envoy from Cleves to France, and with his copies of the
envoy's letters. But, in her turn, Katharine played him, unwittingly
enough, a trick that puzzled him.

'Bones of St Nairn!' he said; 'she has him to herself. What mad prank
will she play now?'

Katharine had drawn Cromwell to the very end of the gallery.

'As I pray that Christ will listen to my pleas when at the last I come
to Him for pardon and comfort,' she said, 'I swear that I will speak
true words to you.'

He surveyed her, plump, alert, his lips moving one upon the other. He
brought one white soft hand from behind his back to play with the furs
upon his chest.

'Why, I believe you are a very earnest woman,' he said.

'Then, sir,' she said, 'understand that your sun is near its setting.
We rise, we wane; our little days do run their course. But I do
believe you love your King his cause more than most men.'

'Madam Howard,' he said, 'you have been my foremost foe.'

'Till five minutes agone I was,' she said.

He wondered for a moment if she were minded to beg him to aid her in
growing to be Queen; and he wondered too how that might serve his
turn. But she spoke again:

'You have very well served the King,' she said. 'You have made him
rich and potent. I believe ye have none other desire so great as that
desire to make him potent and high in this world's gear.'

'Madam Howard,' he said calmly, 'I desire that--and next to found for
myself a great house that always shall serve the throne as well as I.'

She gave him t