that in speaking with persons of ordinary stature he looked up under his
brows, a little sideways, to see better. Smooth red hair covered his
bony head, and grew in a carefully trimmed and pointed beard on his
pointed chin. A loose doublet of crimson velvet hid the outlines of his
crooked back and projecting breastbone, and the rest of his dress was of
materials as rich, and all red. He was, moreover, extraordinarily
careful of his appearance, and no courtier had whiter or more delicately
tended hands or spent more time before the mirror in tying a shoulder
knot, and in fastening the stiffened collar of white embroidered linen
at the fashionable angle behind his neck.

He had entered the latticed gallery on his way to Don John's apartments
with the King's message. A small and half-concealed door, known to few
except the servants of the palace, opened upon it suddenly from a niche
in one of the upper corridors. In Moorish days the ladies of the harem
had been wont to go there unseen to see the reception of ambassadors of
state, and such ceremonies, at which, even veiled, they could never be
present.

He only stayed a few moments, and though his eyes were eager, it was by
habit rather than because they were searching for any one in the crowd.
It pleased him now and then to see the court world as a spectacle, as it
delights the hard-worked actor to be for once a spectator at another's
play. He was an integral part of the court himself, a man of whom most
was often expected when he had the least to give, to whom it was
scarcely permitted to say anything in ordinary language, but to whom
almost any license of familiar speech was freely allowed. He was not a
man, he was a tradition, a thing that had to be where it was from
generation to generation; wherever the court had lived a jester lay
buried, and often two and three, for they rarely lived an ordinary
lifetime. Adonis thought of that sometimes, when he was alone, or when
he looked down at the crowd of delicately scented and richly dressed men
and women, every one called by some noble name, who would doubtless
laugh at some jest of his before the night was over. To their eyes the
fool was a necessary servant, because there had always been a fool at
court; he was as indispensable as a chief butler, a chief cook, or a
state coachman, and much more amusing. But he was not a man, he had no
name, he had no place among men, he was not supposed to have a mother, a
wife, a home