I was a bubble and a gull
and a dunce, if you like, but I meant no harm to the king, and the
king smiles on me. Cannot you do the like?"
Katherine came out of her dream and stood upon the earth again, and
disdained him.
"No, for you envy a great spirit and your envy makes you a base
thing."
Noel protested pettishly:
"He is no man-angel. He is made of Adam's clay like the rest of us."
Katherine's thoughts had wandered away from her escort; her mind's
eyes were busy with waving banners, the shock of meeting lances, the
glitter of steel coats and the beating of steel upon steel. Through
all the melley, her fancy spied one shining figure in bright armour
like, so it seemed to her, Archangel Michael or Archangel Gabriel,
riding in the pride of the fight with a smile on his lips, sorrow in
his heart, and a token of white ribbon between his breast-plate and
his breast.
She answered, not Noel's words, but her thoughts:
"My pride has the right to hate him, but I think he is still my
soul's man."
Noel was about to speak again, when he suddenly fell back and doffed
his bonnet. Perched on the steps of the church stood the stooped
sable figure of the king, just coming from his matinal devotions.
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