'Well, there's a fine roister-doister!' the Lady Cicely laughed behind the Queen's back. The Queen stood very still and frowned. To her the disturbance was monstrous and distasteful, for she was minded to have things very orderly and quiet. The boy, in his scarlet, pulled off his bonnet and panted, but he was not still more than a second, and suddenly he called out to the Queen—
'Make that pynot to marry my sister!'
Margot Poins hung round him and cried out—
'Oh no! Oh no!'
He shook her roughly loose.
'An' you do not wed with him how shall I get advancement?' he said. ''A promised me that when 'a should come to be Chancellor 'a would advance me.'
He pushed her from him again with his elbow when she came near.
'Y've grown over familiar,' the Queen said, 'with being too much near me. Y'are grown over familiar. For seven days you shall no longer keep my door.'
Margot Poins raised her arms over her head, then she leant against a window-pane and sobbed into the crook of her elbow. The boy's slender face was convulsed with rage; his blue eyes started from his head; his callow hair was crushed up.
'Shall a man——' he began to protest.