“You have promised us some of your poems, cousin!” said he. “So let us now enjoy them; for you see, indeed, how impatiently all the beautiful women look on England’s noblest and greatest poet, and how very angry with me they would be if I still longer withhold this enjoyment from them! Even my fair queen is full of longing after your songs, so rich in fancy; for you well know, Howard, she loves poetry, and, above all things, yours.”
Catharine had scarcely heard what the king said. Her looks had encountered Seymour’s, and their eyes were fixed on each other’s. But she had then cast down to the floor her eyes, still completely filled with the sight of her lover, in order to think of him, since she no longer dared gaze at him.
When the king called her name, she started up and looked at him inquiringly. She had not heard what he had said to her.
“Not even for a moment does she look toward me!” said Henry Howard to himself. “Oh, she loves me not! or at least her understanding is mightier than her love. Oh, Catharine, Catharine, fearest thou death so much that thou canst on that account deny thy love?”
With desperate haste he drew out his portfolio. “I will compel her to look at me, to think of me, to remember her oath,” thought he. “Woe to her, if she does not fulfil it—if she gives me not the rosette, which she promised me with so solemn a vow! If she does it not, then I will break this dreadful silence, and before her king, and before her court, accuse her of treachery to her love. Then, at least, she will not be able to cast me off; for we shall mount the scaffold together.”
“Does my exalted queen allow me to begin?” asked he aloud, wholly forgetting that the king had already given him the order to do so, and that it was he only who could grant such a permission.
Catharine looked at him in astonishment. Then her glance fell on Lady Jane Douglas, who was gazing over at her with an imploring expression. The queen smiled; for she now remembered that it was Jane’s beloved who had spoken to her, and that she had promised the poor young girl to raise again the dejected Earl of Surrey and to be gracious to him.
“Jane is right,” thought she; “he appears to be deeply depressed and suffering. Ah, it must be very painful to see those whom one loves suffering. I will, therefore, comply with Jane’s request, for she says this might revive the earl.”
With a smile she bowed to Howard. “I beg you,” said she, “to lend our festival its fairest ornament—to adorn it with the fragrant flowers of your poesy. You see we are all burning with desire to hear your verses.”
The king shook with rage, and a crushing word was already poised upon his lip. But he restrained himself. He wanted to have proofs first; he wanted to see them not merely accused, but doomed also; and for that he needed proofs of their guilt.