shrug. "It is a great mystery why such
persons should win all which they desire of this world. We can but
recognize that it is for some sufficient reason." Then he talked with
her concerning the aforementioned infamous emperor of the East, against
whom the old knight had fought, and of Enrico Dandolo and of King
Boniface, dead brother to Madona Biatritz, and of much remote,
outlandish adventuring oversea. Of Zoraida he did not speak. And
Biatritz, in turn, told him of that one child which she had borne her
husband, Prince Conrat--a son who died in infancy; and she spoke of
this dead baby, who living would have been their monarch, with a sweet
quietude that wrung the old knight's heart.

Thus these spent people sat and talked for a long while, the talk
veering anywhither just as chance directed. Blurred gusts of song and
laughter would come to them at times from the hall where Guillaume de
Baux drank with his courtiers, and these would break the tranquil flow
of speech. Then, unvexedly, the gentle voice of the speaker, were it
his or hers, would resume.

She said: "They laugh. We are not merry."

"No," he replied; "I am not often merry. There was a time when love
and its service kept me in continuous joy, as waters invest a fish. I
woke from a high dream. . . . And then, but for the fear of seeming
cowardly, I would have extinguished my life as men blow out a candle.
Vanity preserved me, sheer vanity!" He shrugged, spreading his hard
lean hands. "Belhs Cavaliers, I grudged my enemies the pleasure of
seeing me forgetful of valor and noble enterprises. And so, since
then, I have served Heaven, in default of you."

"I would not have it otherwise," she said, half as in wonder; "I would
not have you be quite sane like other men. And I believe," she
added--still with her wise smile--"you have derived a deal of comfort,
off and on, from being heart-broken."

He replied gravely: "A man may always, if he will but take the pains,
be tolerably content and rise in worth, and yet dispense with love. He
has only to guard himself against baseness, and concentrate his powers
on doing right. Thus, therefore, when fortune failed me, I persisted
in acting to the best of my ability. Though I had lost my lands and my
loved lady, I must hold fast to my own worth. Without a lady and
without acreage, it was yet in my power to live a cleanly and honorable
life; and I did not wish to make two evils out of one."

"Assur