h
every curve and angle of his misshapen frame--protesting against praise
of beauty.

"Did he pilfer your silly heart from your soft body?" he asked. Perpetua
answered him mildly, heedless of the sneering speech.

"He spoke me fair. He was grave and courteous. I know he was brave and
good." She moved a little away, with her hands clasped, speaking rather
to herself, but indifferent to the presence of the fool. "When God
wishes me to mate, God grant that I love such a man."

The frankness, the simplicity, the purity of this prayer seemed to sting
Diogenes to a fierce irritation. Leering and lolling, he advanced upon
the girl.

"Did he kiss you upon the mouth?" he whispered, mean insinuation
lighting his face with an ignoble joy.

The girl turned upon him swiftly, and there was a sternness in her face
that made the fool recoil involuntarily and wince as if at a coming
blow. But there was little anger in the girl's clear speech as she
condemned the unclean thing.

"You have a vile mind," she said, quietly. "And if I did not pity you
very greatly I should change no words with you."

Diogenes, nothing dashed by her reproof, neared her in a dancing manner,
smiling as some ancient satyr may have smiled at the sight of some shy,
snared nymph.

"How if I chose to kiss you?" he asked, and his loose lips mouthed
caressingly. To his surprise the girl met his advances as no shy nymph
ever met satyr, with a hearty peal of laughter, that brought the tears
into her eyes and red rage into his. She thrust towards him her strong,
smooth arms.

"I have a man's strength to prop my woman's pity," she said, as she
broke off her laughter, "and, believe me, you would fare ill."

Diogenes eyed her with a dubiousness that soon became certainty. That
well-fashioned, finely poised creature, with the firm flesh and the
clean lines of an athlete, was of very different composition from the
court minions who swam in the sunshine of Robert's favor, of late at
Naples and now in Sicily. He had strength enough to tease them and hurt
them sometimes when it pleased Robert to suffer him to maltreat them;
but here was a different matter. He gave ground sullenly, the girl still
laughing, with her strong arms lying by her sides.

"You seem a stalwart morsel," he grunted. "I will leave you in peace if
you will tell me where to hide from the King's anger. Indeed, I do not
greatly grieve to leave the city, for they say a seaman died of the
plague the