.

'It come over me, in a bitter wave like, that here was I, a master
craftsman, who had worked no bounds, soul or body, to make the King's
tomb and chapel a triumph and a glory for all time; and here, d'ye see,
I was made knight, not for anything I'd slaved over, or given my heart
and guts to, but expressedly because I'd saved him thirty pounds and a
tongue-lashing from Catherine of Castille--she that had asked for the
ship. That thought shrivelled me with insides while I was folding away
my draft. On the heels of it--maybe you'll see why--I began to grin
to myself. I thought of the earnest simplicity of the man--the King, I
should say--because I'd saved him the money; his smile as though
he'd won half France! I thought of my own silly pride and foolish
expectations that some day he'd honour me as a master craftsman. I
thought of the broken-tipped sword he'd found behind the hangings; the
dirt of the cold room, and his cold eye, wrapped up in his own concerns,
scarcely resting on me. Then I remembered the solemn chapel roof and
the bronzes about the stately tomb he'd lie in, and--d'ye see?---the
unreason of it all--the mad high humour of it all--took hold on me till
I sat me down on a dark stair-head in a passage, and laughed till I
could laugh no more. What else could I have done?

'I never heard his feet behind me--he always walked like a cat--but his
arm slid round my neck, pulling me back where I sat, till my head lay
on his chest, and his left hand held the knife plumb over my
heart--Benedetto! Even so I laughed--the fit was beyond my
holding--laughed while he ground his teeth in my ear. He was stark
crazed for the time.

'"Laugh," he said. "Finish the laughter. I'll not cut ye short. Tell
me now"--he wrenched at my head--"why the King chose to honour
you,--you--you--you lickspittle Englishman? I am full of patience now.
I have waited so long." Then he was off at score about his Jonah in Bury
Refectory, and what I'd said of it, and his pictures in the chapel which
all men praised and none looked at twice (as if that was my fault!), and
a whole parcel of words and looks treasured up against me through years.

'"Ease off your arm a little," I said. "I cannot die by choking, for I
am just dubbed knight, Benedetto."

'"Tell me, and I'll confess ye, Sir Harry Dawe, Knight. There's a long
night before ye. Tell," says he.

'So I told him--his chin on my crown--told him all; told it as well
and with as many words a