would he not, recall Percy and permit their marriage? It was a strange solution to the affair but stranger things had happened. There was in Henry, she divined, a love of the show of power, a joy in the parade of kingly benevolence, that she might play on and conjure to this end. It was a riotous hope. It kept her company all her waking hours and invaded her sleep with dreams. She saw herself and Percy reunited and the memories that she tried to banish from her forever she now welcomed back with open arms. To be sure her quick mind questioned whether Percy would now, after their separation and her resentful disdain of his weakness, be to her what her girlish fancy had first made him, but she snubbed such questioning severely. Very likely the world would never seem quite the same to her either, now she had known injustice and sorrow and disappointment, but that could not be helped. It was, in spite of all, a wonderfully fascinating world, and Percy—even if she idealized him not so much was always Percy, her young lover, to whom she had yielded the sweetness of her heart. She thought of his eyes, of how the deep blue of them kindled as they looked upon her, and of the thrill in his voice and things that he had whispered to her in the garden, and she thought for the first time she let herself think-how desperately he must have been missing her all these months. Well, she would make it up to him when they met. When they met! The dream of it fluttered her heart. When they met! Her young confidence in her ability to manage Henry, to transform the self-seeking passion of a violent man of thirty-five into magnanimous self-denial was naïvely touching. CHAPTER VI THE INTERVIEW HE opportunity came with another entertainment that Cardinal Wolsey gave in October at York Place. There was a mask, a rather tedious bit of allegory, a solo or two by a young Italian with a seraph voice and then the company broke up to chat or dance or play cards. The king was not present and it was whispered that he had preferred to spend the evening roistering through the town in disguise, but Anne Boleyn thought that the evening would not pass without some glimpse of him. She was sure of it, when the cardinal, singling her out for especial attention, directed her steps from room to room, on pretext of displaying the tapestries about which he was discoursing fluently. For all his smooth speech and the mask-like urbanity of his features, the girl fancied that she detected a twinkle of contemptuous amusement in the look that slanted to her under his heavy eyelid. Her strong dislike of the man never for an instant slept; indeed it was intensified by the part she perceived that he designed her to play a puppet to amuse the king while Wolsey conducted the state- but her dislike was coated over by her youthful assurance of adequacy to the situation. She felt that she saw through his schemes and was more than equal to them, and her vanity could not resist the pleasant flattery in this allpowerful favorite's impressive attentions to her. As the two stood in the end room of a long suite, small, odd-shaped room overlooking the Thames, Cavendish, one of the cardinal's ushers, appeared at the door, and Wolsey interrupted the history with which he was favoring Anne to take the man's whispered message. 66 66 Pshaw!" said the cardinal. Always some affair - though it will take but a moment. I pray you pardon me if I quit you, Mistress Boleyn? 'Tis but a moment . . .' He was out the door and Anne. was alone. Long initiated to the intrigues of court, she felt a sharp prescience of crisis, and in spite of that high confidence of her youth, her knees felt weak and her throat dry. She was obliged to remind herself urgently of her ability to meet the situation and she hummed a little tune for reassur ance. Pastance with good company "Good even, lady." Henry had gowned himself regally for this occasion, in cloth of silver picked out with gold; jeweled chains swung about his neck, a blazing diamond star flashed on the purple velvet of his flat, plumed cap. For a moment he filled the doorway with his splendor, then came forward into the room and shut the door behind him. 66 Nay, look not so fearful, sweet Anne," he said, holding out his hands. ""Tis not thy king, but thy lover commends himself to thee." It had come, then. The Rubicon was crossed. Anne rose from her courtesy with a pale face. "Nay, my king," she began quickly but Henry had not come to fencé longer with words. The floodgates of his feeling had opened at sight of her there, alone, wide-eyed and lovely, and the torrent poured forth. He wanted her- he was resolved to have her. He did not clothe what he was pleased to call his sentiments in imaginative garb at all. He did not reckon with denial. Love he wanted, love he would have. He was master. He would have his way. Never in Anne's life had she come so close to such fire. She had never suspected its never suspected its existence. She shrank back, appalled and giddy, in a quivering panic from that inflamed pursuit. "I think that your Highness speaks such words in jest . . . and to prove me," she gasped, retreating. You cannot have intent to degrade your princely self!" 66 Unheeding her denial, he pressed closer, closer. His arms reached to draw her from the corner where she stood at bay. Anne faced him with up-flung head and flashing eyes. "At the court of France the king does not make love by force!" she cried. It checked him as nothing else on earth could have done, for if there was one thing he disliked more than another it was any suggestion of inferiority to the polish of the French, of a lack of their savoir-faire. He looked with amazement at the young girl who had struck such a sure note of defiance. "Thou hast made me mad, Sweetheart," he muttered in apology. "I cannot talk with madmen," she flung back in a trembling voice. 66 Nay, then I will be reasonable so you do but love me!" He laughed gayly, for though thwarted in this first rough attempt, his confidence in victory was unshaken. Moments or minutes might delay it but it was only a question of time. Equally determined on her part, the girl began to recover her self-possession. With the shifting of the contest from force to words her sense of competence returned. Her knees ceased to shake, the color surged back to her face. But her breath still came and went in fluttering excitement. 66 nay, it can never be, most noble king," she Such words on your part can be For your own noble self it cannot be cried, imploringly. only in vain. 66 and for mine own self." For thy sake, sweet Anne? Dost thou not canst thou not love me? Hast thou not made me love theeto madness, as I said. Canst thou call back the arrows thy dark eyes have shot?" Very unhappily, Anne was wishing to Heaven that she could. 66 Nay, those eyes have belied thy cold words," he declared triumphantly. "Thou lovest me!" It was an extremely difficult assertion to combat. Anne met it with a swift, "As my king!" "Only as thy king? Hast thou no heart then for the man for Henry Tudor, thy most humble lover?” 66 66 As my king!" she repeated again, her eyes, steadily denying, meeting his in unfaltering courage. One white, upraised hand forbade, in its peremptory gesture, the advance he was ever on the verge of making. More can never, never be," she went on hurriedly. "For thy sake, for thy princely sake, I would not let thee do thyself this wrong. Such such love-is unworthy of thee. . . I would die rather than bring degradation upon thee." Her voice rang stronger on those last words, feeling she had found the right method at last, and that the inter |