abated. There was a Tenson once--Lord, Lord, how long ago! I learn
too late that truth may possibly have been upon the losing side--" He
took up Rigon's lute.

Sang Sire Edward:

"_Incuriously he smites the armored king
And tricks his wisest counsellor--_

ay, the song ran thus. Now listen, madame--listen, while for me Death
waits without, and for you ignominy."

Sang Sire Edward:

"_Anon
Will Death not bid us cease from pleasuring,
And change for idle laughter i' the sun
The grave's long silence and the peace thereof,--
Where we entranced. Death our Viviaine
Implacable, may never more regain
The unforgotten passion, and the pain
And grief and ecstasy of life and love?_

"_Yea, presently, as quiet as the king
Sleeps now that laid the walls of Ilion,
We, too, will sleep, and overhead the spring
Laugh, and young lovers laugh--as we have done--
And kiss--as we, that take no heed thereof,
But slumber very soundly, and disdain
The world-wide heralding of winter's wane
And swift sweet ripple of the April rain
Running about the world to waken love._

"_We shall have done with Love, and Death be king
And turn our nimble bodies carrion,
Our red lips dusty;--yet our live lips cling
Spite of that age-long severance and are one
Spite of the grave and the vain grief thereof
We mean to baffle, if in Death's domain
Old memories may enter, and we twain
May dream a little, and rehearse again
In that unending sleep our present love._

"_Speed forth to her in sorry unison,
My rhymes: and say Death mocks us, and is slain
Lightly by Love, that lightly thinks thereon;
And that were love at my disposal lain--
All mine to take!--and Death had said, 'Refrain,
Lest I demand the bitter cost thereof,'
I know that even as the weather-vane
Follows the wind so would I follow Love._"

Sire Edward put aside the lute. "Thus ends the Song of Service," he
said, "which was made not by the King of England but by Edward
Plantagenet--hot-blooded and desirous man!--in honor of the one woman
who within more years than I care to think of has attempted to serve
but Edward Plantagenet."

"I do not comprehend," she said. And, indeed, she dared not.

But now he held both tiny hands in his. "At best, your poet is an
egotist. I must die presently. Meantime I crave largesse, madame! ay,
a gre