The King's Achievement. Robert Hugh Benson

it, standing a little aside to let the light fall on it.

      "Your Grace will understand—" began Cromwell again.

      "Yes, yes, yes," said the harsh voice impatiently. "Let the fellow take it back," and he thrust the paper into Cromwell's hand, who turned once more to Ralph.

      "Who is he?" said the King. "I have seen his face. Who are you?"

      "This is Mr. Ralph Torridon," said Cromwell; "a very useful friend to me, your Grace."

      "The Torridons of Overfield?" questioned Henry once more, who never forgot a face or a name.

      "Yes, your Grace," said Cromwell.

      "You are tall enough, sir," said the King, running his narrow eyes up and down Ralph's figure;—"a strong friend."

      "I hope so, your Grace," said Ralph.

      The King again looked at him, and Ralph dropped his eyes in the glare of that mighty personality. Then Henry abruptly thrust out his hand to be kissed, and as Ralph bent over it he was aware of the thick straight fingers, the creased wrist, and the growth of hair on the back of the hand.

      * * * * *

      Ralph was astonished, and a little ashamed at his own excitement as he passed down the stairs again. It was so little that had happened; his own part had been so insignificant; and yet he was tingling from head to foot. He felt he knew now a little better how it was that the King's will, however outrageous in its purposes, was done so quickly. It was the sheer natural genius of authority and royalty that forced it through; he had felt himself dominated and subdued in those few moments, so that he was not his own master. As he went home through the street or two that separated the Palace gate from his own house, he found himself analysing the effect of that presence, and, in spite of its repellence, its suggestion of coarseness, and its almost irritating imperiousness, he was conscious that there was a very strong element of attractiveness in it too. It seemed to him the kind of attractiveness that there is for a beaten dog in the chastising hand: the personality was so overwhelming that it compelled allegiance, and that not wholly one of fear. He found himself thinking of Queen Katharine and understanding a little better how it was that the refined, delicately nurtured and devout woman, so constant in her prayers, so full of the peculiar fineness of character that gentle birth and religion alone confer, could so cling to this fierce lord of hers, throw herself at his feet with tears before all the company, and entreat not to be separated from him, calling him her "dear lord," her "love," and her most "merciful and gracious prince."

      * * * * *

      The transition from this train of thought to that bearing on Beatrice was not a difficult one; for the memory of the girl was continually in his mind. He had seen her half a dozen times now since their first meeting; for he had availed himself to the full of Cromwell's encouragement to make himself at home at Chelsea; and he found that his interest in her deepened every time. With a touch of amusement he found himself studying Horace and Terence again, not only for Sir Thomas More's benefit, but in order to win his approval and his good report to his household, among whom Beatrice was practically to be reckoned.

      He was pleased too by More's account of Beatrice.

      "She is nearly as good a scholar as my dear Meg," he had said one day.

       "Try her, Mr. Torridon."

      Ralph had carefully prepared an apt quotation that day, and fired it off presently, not at Beatrice, but, as it were, across her; but there was not the faintest response or the quiver of an eyelid.

      There was silence a moment; and then Sir Thomas burst out—

      "You need not look so demure, my child; we all know that you understand."

      Beatrice had given him a look of tranquil amusement in return.

      "I will not be made a show of," she said.

      Ralph went away that day more engrossed than ever. He began to ask himself where his interest in her would end; and wondered at its intensity.

      As he questioned himself about it, it seemed that to him it was to a great extent her appearance of detached self-possession that attracted him. It was the quality that he most desired for himself, and one which he had in measure attained; but he was aware that in the presence of Cromwell at least it deserted him. He knew well that he had found his master there, and that he himself was nothing more than a hero-worshipper before a shrine; but it provoked him to feel that there was no one who seemed to occupy the place of a similar divinity with regard to this girl. Obviously she admired and loved Sir Thomas More—Ralph soon found out how deeply in the course of his visits—but she was not in the least afraid of her friend. She serenely contradicted him when she disagreed with what he said, would fail to keep her appointments at his house with the same equanimity, and in spite of Sir Thomas's personality never appeared to give him more than a friendly and affectionate homage. With regard to Ralph himself, it was the same. She was not in the least awed by him, or apparently impressed by his reputation which at this time was growing rapidly as that of a capable and daring agent of Cromwell's; and even once or twice when he condescended to hint at the vastness of the affairs on which he was engaged, in a desperate endeavour to rouse her admiration, she only looked at him steadily a moment with very penetrating eyes, and began to speak of something else. He began to feel discouraged.

      * * * * *

      The first hint that Ralph had that he had been making a mistake in his estimate of her, came from Margaret Roper, who was still living at Chelsea with her husband Will.

      Ralph had walked up to the house one bleak afternoon in early spring along the river-bank from Westminster, and had found Margaret alone in the dining-hall, seated by the window with her embroidery in her hand, and a Terence propped open on the sill to catch the last gleams of light from the darkening afternoon. She greeted Ralph warmly, for he was a very familiar figure to them all by now, and soon began to talk, when he had taken a seat by the wide open fireplace whence the flames flickered out, casting shadows and lights round the high room, across the high-hung tapestries and in the gloomy corners.

      "Beatrice is here," she said presently, "upstairs with father. I think she is doing some copying for him."

      "She is a great deal with him," observed Ralph.

      "Why, yes; father thinks so much of her. He says that none can write so well as she, or has such a quick brain. And then she does not talk, he says, nor ask foolish woman-questions like the rest of us." And Margaret glanced up a moment, smiling.

      "I suppose I must not go up," said Ralph, a little peevishly; for he was tired with his long day.

      "Why, no, you must not," said Margaret, "but she will be down soon, Mr.

       Torridon."

      There was silence for a moment or two; and then Margaret spoke again.

      "Mr. Torridon," she said, "may I say something?" Ralph made a little sound of assent. The warmth of the fire was making him sleepy.

      "Well, it is this," said Margaret slowly, "I think you believe that Beatrice does not like you. That is not true. She is very fond of you; she thinks a great deal of you," she added, rather hastily.

      Ralph sat up; his drowsiness was gone.

      "How do you know that, Mrs. Roper?" he asked. His voice sounded perfectly natural, and Margaret was reassured at the tone of it. She could not see Ralph well; it was getting dark now.

      "I know it well," she said. "Of course we talk of you when you are gone."

      "And does Mrs. Beatrice talk of me?"

      "Not so much," said Margaret, "but she listens very closely; and asks us questions sometimes." The girl's heart was beating with excitement as she spoke; but she had made up her mind to seek this opportunity. It seemed a pity, she thought, that two friends of hers should so misunderstood one another.

      "And what kind of questions?" asked Ralph again.

      "She wonders—what you really think—" went on Margaret slowly,