talked of other things and looked at the floor or at the
sky when she must be spoken to.

One day the Fool, having heard only that the Beauty was to leave the
village, and having heard nothing of the fire, and not having prospered
where he was, returned to his old home. The first person he saw he asked
of the Beauty, and that one told him of the holocaust of her graces, and
warned him, remembering that the Fool had always spoken his thoughts
without tact or discretion--warned the Fool to disguise when he saw her
the shock he must feel and make no sign that he found her other than he
left her. And the Fool promised.

When he saw her he made a pretense indeed of greeting her as before, but
he was like a man trying to look upon a fog as upon a sunrise; for the
old beauty of her face did not strike his eyes full of its own radiance.
She saw the struggle of his smile and the wincing of his soul. But she
did not wince, for she was by now bitterly accustomed to this reticence
and self-control.

He walked along the street with her, and looked always aside or ahead
and talked of other things. He walked with her to her own gate, and to
her porch, trying to find some light thing to say to leave her. But the
cruelty of the world was like a rusty nail in his heart, and when he put
out his hand and she set in his hand what her once so exquisite fingers
were now, his heart broke in his breast; and when he lifted his eyes to
what her once so triumphant face was now, they refused to withhold their
tears, and his lips could not hold back his thoughts, and he groaned
aloud:

"Oh, you were so beautiful! No one was ever so beautiful as you were
then. But now--I can't stand it! I can't stand it! I wish that I might
have died for you. You were so beautiful! I can see you now as you were
when I told you good-by."

Then he was afraid for what he had said, and ashamed, and he dreaded to
look at her again. He would have dashed away, but she seized him by the
sleeve, and whispered:

"How good it is to hear your words! You are the only one that has told
me that I ever was beautiful since I became what I am. Tell me, tell me
how I looked when you bade me good-by!"

And he told her. Looking aside or at the sky, he told her of her face
like a rose in the moonlight, of her hair like some mist spun and woven
in shadows and glamours of its own, of her long creamy arms and her
hands that a god had fashioned lovingly. He told her of her eyes and
t