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Seeing the frown leave his brow all the courtiers grew glad behind him; Cromwell talked with animation to Baumbach, the ambassador from the Schmalkaldner league, since he had not seen the King so gay for many days, and Gardiner in his bishop's robes smiled with a black pleasure because his feast was so much more prosperous than Privy Seal's had been.
But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen. He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies.
O, subtle Frau Baumbach back of the desk!" said I. "Others may fit their shops with mirrors, and cut-glass chandeliers and Oriental rugs and mahogany, but you sit serenely by, and you smile, and you change nothing. You let the brown walls grow dimmer with age; you see the marble-topped tables turning yellow; you leave bare your wooden floor, and you smile, and smile, and smile."
Cromwell smiled too, licking his lips dangerously; Baumbach, the Schmalkaldner, understanding nothing, rolled his German blue eyes in his great head like a pink baby's, and tried to catch the attention of Cromwell, who talked over his shoulder to one of his men. But the many Lutherans that there were in the hall scowled at the floor.
Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it." And he fetched a heavy sigh. Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?
Everybody comes here for their coffee because their aunts an' uncles and Grossmutters and Grosspapas used t' come, and come yet, if they're livin'! An', after all, what is it but a little German bakery?" "But O, wise Herr Baumbach down in the kitchen!
I must have passed it a dozen times without once noticing it just a dingy little black shop nestling between two taller buildings, almost within the shadow of the city hall. Over the sidewalk swung a shabby black sign with gilt letters that spelled, "Franz Baumbach." Blackie waved an introductory hand in the direction of the sign. "There he is. That's all you'll ever see of him."
'Keep thy tongue off the King's name, she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater."
Cromwell had arranged this scene very carefully: for his power over the King fell away daily, and that day he had had to tell Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, that there was no longer any hope of the King's allying himself with the Schmalkaldner league. Therefore he was the more hot to discover a new Papist treason.
Whimsically, and with the memory of that last cream-filled cake fresh in my mind, I saluted the letters that spelled "Franz Baumbach." Blackie chuckled impishly. "Just the same, try a pinch of soda bicarb'nate when you get home, Dawn," he advised. "Well, I'm off to the factory again. Got t' make up for time wasted on m' lady friend. Auf wiedersehen!"
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