"I wonder you do not add also to the King of France and the Soldan of Turkey!" growled the Duke. "Pish! I am not going to be dictated to by Master Granvelle--no, nor by his master, be he ten times Emperor! Go to! Go to! Master Sub-dean! You forget yourself, and so does your master the Bishop. I will have you know that these people are not what you think them. Call you my cousin, the widow of the consort of the late Queen of France, an obnoxious person? Fie! Fie! You forget yourself!" He moved as he stopped speaking, so that the astonished churchman found himself confronted on a sudden by the smiling, defiant Duchess. The Sub-dean started and his face fell, for, seeing her seated in the Duke's presence, he discerned at once that the game was played out. Yet he rallied himself, bethinking him, I fancy, that there were many spectators. He made a last effort. "The Bishop of Arras----" he began. "Pish!" scoffed the Duke, interrupting him. "The Bishop of Arras----" the priest repeated firmly. "I would he were hung with his own tapestry!" retorted the Duke, with a brutal laugh. "Heaven forbid!" replied the ecclesiastic, his pale face reddening and his eyes darting baleful glances at me. But he took the hint, and henceforth said no more of the Bishop. Instead, he continued smoothly, "Your highness has, of course, considered the danger--the danger, I mean, of provoking neighbors so powerful by shielding this lady and making her cause your own. You will remember, sir----" "I will remember Innspruck!" roared the Duke, in a rage, "where the Emperor, ay, and your everlasting Bishop too, fled before a handful of Protestants, like sheep before wolves. A fig for your Emperor! I never feared him young, and I fear him less now that he is old and decrepit and, as men say, mad. Let him get to his watches, and you to your prayers. If there were not this table between us, I would pull your ears, Master Churchman!" * * * * * "But tell me," I asked Master Bertie as I stood beside his couch an hour later, "how did the Duchess manage it? I gathered from something you or she said, a short time back, that you had no influence with the Duke of Cleves." "Not quite that," he answered. "My wife and the late Duke of Suffolk had much to do with wedding the Prince's sister to King Henry, thirteen--fourteen years back, is it? And so far we might have felt confident of his protection. But the marriage turned out ill, or turned out short, and Queen Anne of Cleves was divorced. And--well, we felt a little less confident on that account, particularly as he has the name of a headstrong, passionate man." "Heaven keep him in it!" I said, smiling. "But you have not told me yet what happened."