The King opened his mouth convulsively, but Katharine Howard laid her hand right across it.
'You must be riding soon,' she said. 'I have had a collation set in my chamber.' She was so used by now to the violent humours of these Tudors. 'You have still to direct me,' she added, 'what is to be done with these rived cattle.'
As they went through the door, the little Prince holding his father's hand and she moving him gently by the shoulder, the child said—
'I thought ye wad ha' little profit speaking to my sister in her then mood.'
The King, in the gallery, looked with a gentle apprehension at his wife.
'I trow ye think I ha' done wrong,' he said.
She answered—
'Oh nay; she must come to know one day what your Grace had to tell her. Now it is over. But I would not have had you heated. For it is ill to start riding in a sweat. You shall not go for an hour yet.'
That pleased him, for it made him think she was unwilling he should go.
In her own room the Lady Mary sat back in her chair and smiled grimly at the ceiling.