of his finger would get him Katharine as his wife, for before long the Queen-Regent was again attempting secret negotiations to bring this about. Yes, he could get the girl's body by a couple of pen-strokes, and had he been older that might have contented him: as it was, what he wanted was to rouse the look her eyes had borne in Chartres orchard that tranquil morning, and this one could not readily secure by fiddling with seals and parchments. You see his position: this high-spirited young man now loved the Princess too utterly to take her on lip-consent, and this marriage was now his one possible excuse for ceasing from victorious warfare. So he blustered, and the fighting recommenced; and he slew in a despairing rage, knowing that by every movement of his arm he became to her so much the more detestable.
Then the Vicomte de Montbrison, as you have heard, betrayed France, and King Henry began to strip the French realm of provinces as you peel the layers from an onion. By the May of the year of grace 1420 France was, and knew herself to be, not beaten but demolished. Only a fag-end of the French army lay entrenched at Troyes, where King Charles and his court awaited Henry's decision as to the morrow's action. If he chose to destroy them root and branch, he could; and they knew such mercy as was in the man to be quite untarnished by previous using. Sire Henry drew up a small force before the city and made no overtures toward either peace or throat-cutting.
This was the posture of affairs on the evening of the Sunday after Ascension day, when Katharine sat at cards with her father in his apartments at the Htel de Ville. The King was pursing his lips over an alternative play, when somebody began singing below in the courtyard.
Sang the voice:
"I can find no meaning in life, That have weighed the world,--and it was Abundant with folly, and rife With sorrows brittle as glass, And with joys that flicker and pass Like dreams through a fevered head; And like the dripping of rain In gardens naked and dead Is the obdurate thin refrain Of our youth which is presently dead.
"And she whom alone I have loved Looks ever with loathing on me, As one she hath seen disproved And stained with such smirches as be Not ever cleansed utterly; And is both to remember the days When Destiny fixed her name As the theme and the goal of my praise; And my love engenders shame, And I stain what I strive for and praise.
"O love, most perfect of all, Just to have known you is well! And it heartens me now to recall That just to have known you is well, And naught else is desirable Save only to do as you willed And to love you my whole life long;-- But this heart in me is filled With hunger cruel and strong, And with hunger unfulfilled.
"Fond heart, though thy hunger be As a flame that wanders unstilled, There is none more perfect than she!"
Malise now came into the room, and, without speaking, laid a fox-brush before the Princess.
Katharine twirled it in her hand, staring at the card-littered table. "So you are in his pay, Malise? I am sorry. But you know that your employer is master here. Who am I to forbid him entrance?" The girl went away silently, abashed, and the Princess sat quite still, tapping the brush against the table.
"They do not want me to sign another treaty, do they?" her father asked timidly. "It appears to me they are always signing treaties, and I cannot see that any good comes of it. And I would have won the last game, Katharine, if Malise had not interrupted us. You know I would have won."
"Yes, Father, you would have won. Oh, he must not see you!" Katharine cried, a great tide of love mounting in her breast, the love that draws a mother fiercely to shield her backward boy. "Father, will you not go into your chamber? I have a new book for you, Father--all pictures, dear. Come--" She was coaxing him when Sire Henry appeared in the doorway.
"But I do not wish to look at pictures," Charles said, peevishly; "I wish to play cards. You are an ungrateful daughter, Katharine. You are never willing to amuse me." He sat down with a whimper and began to pluck at his dribbling lips.
Katharine had moved a little toward the door. Her face was white. "Now welcome, sire!" she said. "Welcome, O great conqueror, who in your hour of triumph can find no nobler recreation than to shame a maid with her past folly! It was valorously done, sire. See, Father; here is the King of England come to observe how low we sit that yesterday were lords of France."
"The King of England!" echoed Charles, and he rose now to his feet. "I thought we were at war with him. But my memory is treacherous. You perceive, brother of England, I am planning a new mouse-trap, and my mind is somewhat prempted. I recall now that you are in treaty for my daughter's hand. Katharine is a good girl, a fine upstanding girl, but I suppose--" He paused, as if to regard and hear some invisible counsellor, and then briskly resumed: "Yes, I suppose policy demands that she should marry you. We trammelled kings can never go free of policy--ey, my compre of England? No; it was through policy I wedded her mother; and we have been very unhappy, Isabeau and I. A word in your ear, son-in-law: Madame Isabeau's soul formerly inhabited a sow, as Pythagoras teaches, and when our Saviour cast it out at Gadara, the influence of the moon drew it hither."
Henry did not say anything. Steadily his calm blue eyes appraised Dame Katharine. And King Charles went on, very knowingly:
"Oho, these Latinists cannot hoodwink me, you observe, though by ordinary it chimes with my humor to appear content. Policy again, son-in-law: for once roused, I am terrible. To-day in the great hall-window, under the bleeding feet of Lazarus, I slew ten flies-- very black they were, the black shrivelled souls of parricides,--and afterward I wept for it. I often weep; the Mediterranean hath its sources in my eyes, for my daughter cheats at cards. Cheats, sir!--and I her father!" The incessant peering, the stealthy cunning with which Charles whispered this, the confidence with which he clung to his destroyer's hand, was that of a conspiring child.
"Come, Father," Katharine said. "Come away to bed, dear."
"Hideous basilisk!" he spat at her; "dare you rebel against me? Am I not King of France, and is it not blasphemy for a King of France to be mocked? Frail moths that flutter about my splendor," he shrieked, in an unheralded frenzy, "beware of me, beware! for I am omnipotent! I am King of France, Heaven's regent. At my command the winds go about the earth, and nightly the stars are kindled for my recreation. Perhaps I am mightier than God, but I do not remember now. The reason is written down and lies somewhere under a bench. Now I sail for England. Eia! eia! I go to ravage England, terrible and merciless. But I must have my mouse-traps, Goodman Devil, for in England the cats of the middle-sea wait unfed." He went out of the room, giggling, and in the corridor began to sing:
"A hundred thousand times good-bye! I go to seek the Evangelist, For here all persons cheat and lie ..."
All this while Henry remained immovable, his eyes fixed upon Katharine. Thus (she meditated) he stood among Frenchmen; he was the boulder, and they the waters that babbled and fretted about him. But she turned and met his gaze squarely. She noted now for the first time how oddly his left eyebrow drooped. Katharine said: "And that is the king whom you have conquered! Is it not a notable conquest to overcome so wise a king? to pilfer renown from an idiot? There are cut-throats in Troyes, rogues doubly damned, who would scorn the action. Now shall I fetch my mother, sire? the commander of that great army which you overcame? As the hour is late, she is by this time tipsy, but she will come. Or perhaps she is with some paid lover, but if this conqueror, this second Alexander, wills it she will come. O God!" the girl wailed, on a sudden; "O just and all-seeing God! are not we of Valois so contemptible that in conquering us it is the victor who is shamed?"
"Flower of the marsh!" he said, and his voice pulsed with tender cadences--"flower
