Privy Seal's man,' he answered at last.

'But you have played him false,' she said. He grew pale, glanced over
his shoulder, and put his finger on his lips.

'I'll wager it was for a woman,' she accused him. She wiped her lips
with her apron and dropped her hands upon her lap.

'Why, keep troth to Cromwell if you can,' she said.

'I do think his sun sets,' he whispered.

'Why, I am sorry for it,' she answered. 'I have always loved him for a
brewer's son. My father was a brewer.'

'Cromwell was begotten even by the devil,' Udal answered. 'He made me
write a comedy in the vulgar tongue.'

'Be it as you will,' she answered. 'You shall know on which side to
bite your cake better than I.'

He was still a little shaken at the thought of Privy Seal.

'If you know wherefore cometh Cleves' envoy, much it shall help me to
share the knowledge,' he said at last, 'for by that I may know whether
Cromwell or we do rise or fall.'

'If you have made a pact with a woman, have very great cares,' she
answered dispassionately. 'Doubtless you know how the dog wags its
tail; but you are always a fool with a woman.'

'This woman shall be Queen if Cromwell fall,' the magister said, 'and
I shall rise with her.'

'But is no woman from Cleves' Queen there now?' she asked.

'Cicely,' he answered highly, 'you know much of capons and beeves, but
there are queens that are none and do not queen it, and queans that
are no queens and queen it.'

'And so 'twill be whilst men are men,' she retorted. 'But neither my
first nor my second had his doxies ruling within my house, do what
they might beyond the door.'

He tried to impart to her some of the adoration he had for Katharine
Howard--her learning, her faith, her tallness, her wit, and the
deserved empiry that she had over King Henry VIII; but she only
answered:

'Why, kiss the wench all you will, but do not come to tell me how she
smells!'--and to his new protests: 'Aye, you may well be right and she
may well be Queen--for I know you will sacrifice your ease for no
wench that shall not help you somewhere forwards.'

The magister held his hands above his head in shocked negation of this
injustice--but there came from the street the thin wail of a trumpet;
another joined it, and a third; the three sounds executed a triple
convolution and died away one by one. Holding his thin hand out for
silence and better hearing, he muttered:

'Norfolk's tucket! Then it is true that Norfolk comes