sentimental.

"If he had but been wiser;" he said. "I have noticed again and again the
folly of wise men. There is always clay mixed with gold. I suppose
nothing but the fire that Fryth denied can purge it out; and my lord's
was ambition."

He wagged his head in solemn reprobation, and Ralph did not know whether
to laugh or to look grave. Then there fell a long silence, and Cromwell
again fell to fingering his signet-ring, taking it off his thumb and
rolling it on the smooth oak, and at last stood up with a brisker air.

"Welt," he said, "I have a thousand affairs, and my son Gregory is
coming here soon. Then you will see about that matter. Remember I wish
to know what Master More thinks of her, that--that I may know what to
think."

* * * * *

Ralph understood sufficiently clearly, as he walked home in the evening
light, what it was that his master wanted. It was no less than to catch
some handle against the ex-chancellor, though he had carefully abstained
from saying so. Ralph recognised the adroitness, and saw that while the
directions had been plain and easy to understand, yet that not one word
had been spoken that could by any means be used as a handle against
Cromwell. If anyone in England at that time knew how to wield speech it
was his master; it was by that weapon that he had prevailed with the
King, and still kept him in check; it was that weapon rashly used by his
enemies that he was continually turning against them, and under his
tutoring Ralph himself had begun to be practised in the same art.