ve....'

She murmured 'Oh, oh,' and placed her arms around his shoulders.

'How I love thy brave words!'

'And being Chancellor,' he swore, 'I will come back to thee, oh woman
of the sweet smiles, honey of Hymettus, Cypriote wine....'

She moved herself a little from him in the darkness.

'And if you do not wed with Margot Poins....'

'I pray a plague may fall upon her, but I must wed with her,' he
answered. 'Come now; come now!'

'Else the Lady Katharine shall be displeased with your magistership?'

He sought to draw her to him, but she stiffened herself a little.

'And this Lady Katharine is mistress to the King of England's realm?'

His hands moved tremblingly towards her in the darkness.

'And this Lady Katharine shall be Queen?'

A hiss of exasperation came upon his lips, for she had slipped from
beneath his hands into the darkness.

'Why, then, I will not stay your climbing,' she said. 'Good-night,'
and in the darkness he heard her sob.

The couch fell backwards as he swore and sprang towards her voice.

'Magister!' she said. 'Hands off! Unwed thou shalt not have me, for I
have sworn it.'

'I have sworn to wed seven and twenty women,' he said, 'and have
wedded with none.'

'Nay, nay,' she sobbed. 'Hands off. Henceforth I will make no
vows--but no one but thee shall wed me.'

'Then wed me, in God's name!' he cried, and, screaming:

'_Ho la! Apportez le prestre!_' she softened herself in his arms.

The magister confronted the lights, the leering scullions and the
grinning maids with their great mantles; his brown, woodpecker-like
face was alike crestfallen and thirsty with desire. A lean Dominican,
with his brown cowl back and spectacles of horn, gabbled over his
missal and took a crown's fee--then asked another by way of penitence
for the sin with the maid locked up in another house. When they
brought the bride favours of pink to pin into her gorget she said:

'I long had loved thee for thy great words, husband. Therefore all
these I had in readiness.'

With that knot fast upon him, the magister, clasping his gown upon his
shins, looked askance at the floor. Whilst they made ready the bride,
with great lights and laughter, she said:

'I was minded to have a comfortable husband. And a comfortable husband
is a husband much absent. What more comfortable than me in Paris town
and thee in London city? I keep my inn here, thou mindest thy book
there. Thou shalt here find a goodly capon upon oc