'No. It is not that,' she said. 'It was long ago.'
She crossed the room to smell at the pinks in the window.
'How late the flowers grow,' she said. 'It is August, yet here are still vernal perfumes.'
She was unwilling to bid the gentleman rise and go, because this was the Lady Mary's room.
'Where your Grace is, there the spring abideth,' Mary said sardonically. 'Ecce miraculum sicut erat, Joshuâ rege.'
The little Prince came timidly down to beg a flower from the Queen and they all had their backs upon the spy. He ran his hands down his beard and considered the Queen's words. Then swiftly he was on his feet and through the door. He was more ready to brave the Lady Mary's after-wrath than let the Queen see him upon his knees. For actually it was a treason to kneel to the Lady Mary. It had been proclaimed so in the old days when the King's daughter was always subject to new debasements. And who knew whether now the penalty of treason might not still be enacted? It was certain that the Queen had no liking for the Archbishop. Then, what use might she not make of the fact that the Archbishop's man knelt, seeming to curry favour, though in these days all men knelt to her, even when the King was by? He cursed himself as he hastened away.
The Queen looked over her shoulder and caught the glint of his red heel as it went past the doorpost.
'In our north parts,' she said, and she was glad that Lascelles had fled, 'the seasons come ever tardily.'
'Well, your Grace has not delayed to blossom,' Mary said.
It was part of her humour when she was in a taunting mood to call the Queen always 'your Grace' or 'your Majesty' at every turn of the phrase.