wondering eyes of the men of the Duke's body-guard.

"Pray remember, Lady Ysolinde," said I, with much eagerness, "that I
have as yet said nothing of the matter to Helene, and that my father only
knows that I am to ride to Plassenburg in order to exercise myself in the
practice of arms, before becoming his assistant here in the Red Tower and
in the Hall of Judgment across the way."

My visitor nodded a little impatiently. She who knew so many things, of a
surety might be trusted to understand so much without being told.

In the inner doorway Helene met us. And never had it been my fortune to
see the meeting of two such women. The Little Playmate had in her hands
the broidered handkerchiefs, the long Flemish gloves, and the little
illuminated Book of the Hours which I had given her. She had been about
to lay them away together, as is the fashion of women. And when she met
the Lady Ysolinde I declare that she looked almost as tall. Helene was
perhaps an inch or two less in stature than her visitor, but what she
lacked in height she more than made up in the supple erectness of her
carriage and the vivid and extraordinary alertness of all her movements.

"Lady Ysolinde," said I, as they met with the mutually level eyeshot of
women who measure one another, "this is Helene--whom, for love and
kindliness, we of the Wolfsberg call the 'Little Playmate.'"

The daughter of Master Gerard impetuously threw back the gray monk's hood
which shrouded the masses of her tawny hair. She put out both hands to
Helene, held her a moment at arm's-length to look into her eyes, even as
she had done with me, but in a different way. Then, drawing her nearer,
she leaned forward and kissed her on the brow and on both cheeks.

Now I am not ordinarily a close observer, and many things, specially
things that pertain to the acts of women, pass by me unnoticed. But I saw
in a moment that there was not, and never could be, more than the
semblance of cordial amity between these two women.

I noted the Little Playmate instinctively quiver like a taken bird
when she was thus embraced. It was, I think, the undying antipathy of
Eve for Lilith, a hatred which is mostly on the side of Eve, the
Mother-Woman--its place being taken by sharper and more dangerous envy
in the breast of Lilith-without-the wall.

There, face to face, stood the two women who were to make my life, ruling
it between them, as it were, striking it out between the impact of their
na