u?" Lycabetta questioned.

"Accept me?" Robert echoed, gleefully. "I have so overcome her that she
will woo me in season and out of season. I shall boast the most loving,
patient spouse in Christendom. Mark, now, how my bird flies to a call.
Come hither, rusticity."

He beckoned, and Perpetua moved slowly towards him, outwardly calm. "Do
you take me for your lord and master?" he asked her.

"Ay," Perpetua answered.

Lycabetta looked at the girl's grave face in amaze. "This is a wonder,"
she said; "she seems spellbound."

Robert nodded joyously. "Why, I have cast the glamour upon her, and she
will listen to me as the fish listened to St. Anthony. Will you swear to
obey me, maiden?"

Again Perpetua answered, "Ay."

"Are you in league with the devil?" Lycabetta asked, astonished at the
girl's acquiescence.

Robert grinned impishly. "I will not sell my secret. I suppose you do
not care how I conquer the maid, so long as I do conquer her."

"So long as you do what the King wishes," Lycabetta answered,
contemptuously.

"I swear I will do what the King wishes," Robert retorted. "She shall be
humble enough, she shall be wise enough when I am done with her. You are
skilled in mischief; but I still could be your school-master. Did you
ever hear of Orpheus and his magic lute?"

"What of it?" Lycabetta asked.

"He could pipe so divinely," Robert related, "that all things must needs
follow him, not merely men and women, birds and beasts, but silly stocks
and stones; and your phlegmatic stay-at-home tree would needs uproot
itself and skip to his jingle. Well, you shall see this intractable
virgin follow, lamblike, when I pipe, as I lead the way to my hovel."

"If you can do this, I shall be glad to be rid of her," Lycabetta
confessed. "I have better use for my hours than the training of country
girls."

Robert came nearer to her, confiding: "I know a spell my master
mountebank taught me. A Greek fellow made it, a Roman rogue stole it, an
Italian rascal gave a new twist to it; here is the pith of it. Oh, it
sounds simple enough, but it will win a matron from her allegiance, a
nun from her orisons, a maid from her modesty. See, now, how she will
trip to my whistle. Mistress Modesty, Mistress Modesty, follow me home,
follow me home, follow me home!"

He took up the lute Euphrosyne had laid down, and moved around the room
slowly, playing a quaint little country-side air in a minor key, while
he chanted his song, and,