'Y'are reader in Latin to the Lady Mary,' the King said.
'I have little deserved in that office,' Udal answered; 'the lady reads Latin better than even I.'
'Why, you lie in that,' Henry said, ''a readeth well for she's my daughter; but not so well as thee.'
Udal ducked his head; he was not minded to carry modesty further than in reason.
'The Lady Mary—the Lady Mary of England——' the King said weightily—and these last two words of his had a weight all their own, so that he added, 'of England' again, and then, 'will have little longer need of thee. She shall wed with a puissant Prince.'
'I hail, I felicitate, I bless the day I hear those words,' the Magister said.
'Therefore,' the King said—and his ears had caught the rustle of Margot's grey gown—'we will let thee no more be reader to that my daughter.'
Margot came round the green silk curtains that were looped on the corner posts of the pavilion. When she saw the Magister her great, fair face became slowly of a fiery red; slowly and silently she fell, with motions as if bovine, to her knees at the Queen's side. Her gown was all grey, but it had roses of red and white silk round the upper edges of the square neck-place, and white lawn showed beneath her grey cap.
'We advance thee,' Henry said, 'to be Chancellier de la Royne, with an hundred pounds by the year from my purse. Do homage for thine office.'
Udal fell upon one knee before Katharine, and dropping both cap and book, took her hand to raise to his lips. But Margot caught her hand when he had done with it and set upon it a huge pressure.