He answered that it took a Queen to teach him.
'Why,' she said, 'listen! I know that each day ye do things to pleasure me, things prodigal or such little things as giving me pouncet boxes. But you will find—and a woman, quean or queen, knows it well—that to take the full pleasure of her lover's surprises well, she must have an easy mind. And to have an easy mind she must have granted her the little, little boons she asketh.'
He reflected ponderously upon this point and at last, with a sort of peasant's gravity, nodded his head.
'For,' she said, 'if a woman is to take pleasure she must guess at what you men have done for her. And if she be to guess pleasurably, she must have a clear mind. And if I am to have a clear mind I must have a maiden consoled with a husband.'
Henry seated himself carefully in the great chair of the small pavilion. He spread out his knees, blinked at the view and when, having cast a look round to see that Norfolk was gone—for it did not suit her that he should see on what terms she was with the King—she seated herself on a little foot-pillow at his feet, he set a great hand upon her head. She leaned her arms across over his knees, and looked up at him appealingly.
'I do take it,' he said, 'that I must make some man rich to wed some poor maid.'
'Oh, Solomon!' she said.
'And I do take it,' he continued with gravity, 'that this maid is thy maid Margot.'
'How know you that?' she said.
'I have observed her,' he maintained gravely.