evening. See, it is evening now. Wilt not tell me
too a tale? I should like it, for sometimes I am very lonely."

She was far above him as the stars; but she was a woman, and he a
man--and the first tale was told within a garden. She held out a hand to
him, and he took it and touched it to his forehead, and it fluttered in
his and then lay still. She led him to a bench by the sleeping lake, a
child whose will might not be thwarted, and bade him tell her tales such
as he told her men and maidens. This the sure instinct of his art taught
him he might not do, since those tales which held them thralled were not
for such as she. But he locked his hands about his knee, and thought an
instant, his head flung back and his eyes intent and eager, with an odd
shining deep within them.

So his tale began, in the deep-voiced chant which had rung out by moor
and camp-fire, hushed now, that the peace of the evening's stillness
might not be broken. She sat quite still beside him, her hands clasped
childlike in her lap, listening with parted lips. The dusk deepened, and
the golden moon hung over the surrounding wall and flooded the garden in
wan hoary light. The pool lay a lake of silver in a black fringe of
trees. The night flowers breathed forth drowsy perfume, making heavy the
summer air. Nicanor's voice rolled on, endlessly through the scented
darkness....

Until Nerissa, the old nurse, came upon them suddenly, clamoring for her
charge. Varia sprang to her and kissed her, with fond coaxing arms about
her, so that she relented, since her lady's will was law. She dismissed
Nicanor, and he crossed his arms before his face, and went away from
Paradise.

Varia hid her face on her nurse's shoulder--poor groping soul that found
its happiness in things so small--and said:

"He hath told me tales, Nerissa, so strange and wonderful that never was
aught like them in all the world. I will have him to come again, for I
am so happy--so happy! And thou shalt not tell, for then he could not
come, and he is not to suffer for it. Promise, Nerissa, dear Nerissa--it
is but a little thing!"

Thus Varia.

And Nicanor--ah, Nicanor! That night there opened to him a new world,--a
world of beauty and of sweetness and of pain. He, a son of the soil,
knowing his roughness, his uncouthness, his bondage, never giving them a
thought till then, had led her by the hand, a daughter of the stars, for
a little space, the barriers down between them. One bit of