She stopped and mused.
'Yet,' she said, 'you will do me the justice to say that in the open and in the light of day, when men are by or the King's presence demands it, I do ape as well as I may the painted queens of galleries and the stately ladies that are to be seen in pictured books.'
'I would not have had you send away the maid,' the old Lady Rochford said.
'God help me,' the Queen answered. 'I stayed her petition till the morrow. Is that not queening it enough?'
The Lady Rochford suddenly wrung her hands.
'I had rather,' she said, 'you had heard her and let her stay. Here there are not people enough to guard you. You should have many scores of people. This is a dreary place.'
'Heaven help me,' the Queen said. 'If I were such a queen as to be affrighted, you would affright me. Tell me of your cousin that was a sinful queen.'
The Lady Rochford raised her hands lamentably and bleated out—
'Ah God, not to-night!'
'You have been ready enough on other nights,' the Queen said. And, indeed, it was so much the practice of this lady to talk always of her cousin, whose death had affrighted her, that often the Queen had begged her to cease. But to-night she was willing to hear, for she felt afraid of no omens, and, being joyful, was full of pity for the dead unfortunate. She began with slow, long motions to withdraw the great pins from her hair. The deep silence settled down again, and she hummed the melancholy and stately tune that goes with the words—