He tried to dismiss those staring crowds from his mind as his barge made its slow way down the river; he tried to put away that notion of their enmity and call them merely curious, the vulgar gluttons of events, but when he raised his head and met those eyes he found more than curiosity there. His eye was caught by one face in particular — a woman's face, white and starved, with eyes like caverns. There was such fixity of hate in her haggardness that he felt as if he had seen an ever-burning fire. He wondered who she was, what thing had given her that look.

He could not banish it from his mind, it took possession of him with the intensity of a tormenting enigma. And then quite suddenly it came over him. The sight of a little boy precariously balancing on a barge gave him the clue. . . . He recalled that a year or so gone by, two little boys had been busy casting down a gutter some rubbish that the rain had swept there. A laquay of the Viscount de Touraine had complained that he had been hit by a piece of it, and the French lords had taken the matter up and Wolsey had had the whole family of the offenders arrested. He had kept the father and mother and relatives and servants in jail for six weeks, as a warning; the boys themselves had been committed to the Tower. One of them died there and he dimly recalled now that there was something said about the other's having been lamed by ill-usage. Someone had made a sentimental plea to Anne about him and she had brought about his release. It was a low family they were not worth troubling about, and yet the eyes of that mother, for he identified the haggard woman as the mother, seemed to pierce him with baleful portent, shrug it off as he might with a "Pah! Gutterscum!

His barge had reached the Tower now and as it did

not halt there but proceeded on its way to Putney a sudden deep-throated cry came up from the mob, swelling louder and louder in its disappointment like a clamor of disappointed hounds.

The cardinal smiled disdainfully. He would live to be revenged on them yet, he told himself. But he told himself wearily. He felt old and jaded. There was SO much to be done all over again all over again.

H

CHAPTER XX

LADY ANNE ROCHFORD

NNE caught her breath with delight at the first glance about York Place. She had anticipated treasure, but not such profusion as this!

With a little dancing step she left the king's side the king and her mother and Henry Norris had come secretly by barge from Greenwich one bright October morning to inspect this palace- and flew to the nearest table heaped with its rainbow hued silks.

"Oh, mother!" she cried out, holding up a piece of embroidered golden tissue, as impalpable and radiant as sunshine, in such a feminine ecstasy that all three of her companions burst out laughing.

"Marry, I have had no new robes for a month," she defended herself prettily.

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There are robes for thee there, Sweetheart, for all years," Henry promised, while he turned with an equal eagerness to the tables of gold and silver plate.

"By the mass!" he ejaculated, staring at the glittering covers, and Norris gave a soft whistle of amazement. "In sooth here are trenchers fit and enough for heaven and all its angels. Odd's bodkins, but one had no need to dine off pewter in this house!"

"This satin this scarlet satin!" admired Anne, draping a lustrous fold of it over her outstretched arm. "Didst ever see such luster? I shall have a gown of it!... Oh, and this velvet so tawny color- look,

mother! I shall have that. And see this lace! 'Tis

.

point de Venise - it would go richly with the velvet.. There is another piece of it— there, mother, hand it here. . . . See now, sire," and she was across the room to the king, the lace in her hands. Come and see the stuff for my next gown. Oh, Harry!" she whispered excitedly, "is it not glorious? Didst ever see such a riot of riches?"

"The plate, Anne- you've not regarded a piece. See this." Henry had a great platter in his hand, wrought about its borders with figures of the chase; the boar had eyes of twinkling rubies and tusks of pearls. "A quaint device, eh? And there's a drinking cup here — where is it?"

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This, your Grace?" offered Norris.

"That? No, the other. Here, Anne, see the cunning figures of the support. Here be three women, three Graces, holding the cup"

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Then I shall take it away from you, sire one woman is quite enough for you.”

"She is the three Graces in one and the nine Muses to boot," he declared. "So this is a fitting cup for thee

thou shalt have it."

"Ah, many thanks," Anne returned carelessly. She was back already at the table of silks where a vivid grogram of Tudor green had caught her eyes.

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It will make fine sleeve ties for the tawny velvet," she declared, already conjuring up a vision of the gown to be while her mother fingered linen sheeting. "I will have the sleeves puffed with this white tissue here and tied with this green, and I will wear emeralds with it

- hast found me some emeralds?" she flashed, darting back to her lover's side. "I am planning a green gown, oh, a green and tawny gold vision of a gown,

and I would wear some green stones about my neck with it."

Henry smiled down into the eager, upturned face: Anne was like a happy confident child, secure in its own audacity, confident of its alluring charm. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were very bright.

"Thou shalt have emeralds for thy neck and thy head and thy fingers and to sew all over thy gown," he promised royally. "Come now and go over the palace and thou shalt select the finest suite of chambers for thine own," and laughing like two children they were off, the smiling Norris and awe-stricken stepmother following in their wake.

The gown of velvet, a rich, tawny golden, the front and sleeves slashed and puffed with white tissue and the bodice studded with emeralds was finished in time for the banquet given in Anne's honor on December ninth, 1529. It was to mark her elevation in rank, for on the preceding day her father had become the Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond and she the Lady Anne Rochford. The Rochford instead of Boleyn was Henry's suggestion, for he suspected uncomfortably that her grandfather, old Boleyn, the mercer, was too well remembered in London, and he had men at work already constructing a most elaborate pedigree for his future wife.

The banquet was the first entertainment in York House, now rechristened Whitehall, since its new occupancy and to avoid any disparaging comparisons with its former state Henry had given the most lavish orders in every direction. The cooks were to excel the old régime in every way; the finest of wines were to be used, the choicest viands, the richest plate.

It was a matter of surprise to the entering guests to see that at the table of state under the royal canopy,