He, not moving from his doorway—making it serve him rather for a pulpit—when he had thought for awhile, with quickly blinking eyes, began: ‘I think that you seek to put me to some question, madam, but without naming it. I think that you would have me justify myself without cause cited. But this I shall not do, lest afterwards come in your Clerk of Arraigns and I find myself prejudged upon my plea before I am accused at all. Why, in this matter of service of subjects, we are all in a manner bound upon it. Many masters must we obey: as God and His stewards, who are girded angels; and Death and his officers, who are famines, diseases, fires, and the swords of violent men, suffered by God for primordial reasons; and next the prince and his ministers, among whom I reckon——’
‘Oh, sir; oh, sir,’ she cried out, ‘you go too fast for me!’
‘Madam,’ said he, ‘I speak with respect, but I do think you go as fast as I.’
She laughed. ‘I am young, Mr. Knox, and go as fast as I can. Do you blame me for that?’
‘I may not, madam,’ said he steadily, ‘unless to remember that you sit in an old seat be to blame you.’
‘I sit at my needlework now, sir.’
He saw her fine head bent over the web, a gesture beautifully meek, but said he: ‘I suspect the seat is beneath your Majesty. It is hard to win, yet harder to leave when the time comes.’
‘But,’ said she, ‘if I put aside my seat, if I waive my authority, how would you consider me then?’
He turned his head from one to another, and then gazed calmly at the Queen. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘if you waive your authority and put aside your seat, the which (you say) you have from God, why then should I consider you at all?’