Henry did not say anything.  Steadily his calm blue eyes appraised Dame Katharine.  And King Charles went on, very knowingly: 

“Oho, these Latinists cannot hoodwink me, you observe, though by ordinary it chimes with my humor to appear content.  Policy again, son-in-law:  for once roused, I am terrible.  To-day in the great hall-window, under the bleeding feet of Lazarus, I slew ten flies—­ very black they were, the black shrivelled souls of parricides,—­and afterward I wept for it.  I often weep; the Mediterranean hath its sources in my eyes, for my daughter cheats at cards.  Cheats, sir!—­and I her father!” The incessant peering, the stealthy cunning with which Charles whispered this, the confidence with which he clung to his destroyer’s hand, was that of a conspiring child.

“Come, Father,” Katharine said.  “Come away to bed, dear.”

“Hideous basilisk!” he spat at her; “dare you rebel against me?  Am I not King of France, and is it not blasphemy for a King of France to be mocked?  Frail moths that flutter about my splendor,” he shrieked, in an unheralded frenzy, “beware of me, beware! for I am omnipotent!  I am King of France, Heaven’s regent.  At my command the winds go about the earth, and nightly the stars are kindled for my recreation.  Perhaps I am mightier than God, but I do not remember now.  The reason is written down and lies somewhere under a bench.  Now I sail for England.  Eia! eia!  I go to ravage England, terrible and merciless.  But I must have my mouse-traps, Goodman Devil, for in England the cats of the middle-sea wait unfed.”  He went out of the room, giggling, and in the corridor began to sing: 

  “A hundred thousand times good-bye! 
  I go to seek the Evangelist,
  For here all persons cheat and lie ...”

All this while Henry remained immovable, his eyes fixed upon Katharine.  Thus (she meditated) he stood among Frenchmen; he was the boulder, and they the waters that babbled and fretted about him.  But she turned and met his gaze squarely.  She noted now for the first time how oddly his left eyebrow drooped.  Katharine said:  “And that is the king whom you have conquered!  Is it not a notable conquest to overcome so wise a king? to pilfer renown from an idiot?  There are cut-throats in Troyes, rogues doubly damned, who would scorn the action.  Now shall I fetch my mother, sire? the commander of that great army which you overcame?  As the hour is late, she is by this time tipsy, but she will come.  Or perhaps she is with some paid lover, but if this conqueror, this second Alexander, wills it she will come.  O God!” the girl wailed, on a sudden; “O just and all-seeing God! are not we of Valois so contemptible that in conquering us it is the victor who is shamed?”