t matter very much, after I am Queen, for
people declare this King is a poor spindling creature, and, as I was
saying, you can come presently into England."

Manuel looked at her for a moment or two. She colored. He, sitting at
the feet of weeping Jephthah, smiled. "Well," said Manuel, "I will come
into England when you send me a goose-feather. So the affair is arranged."

"Oh, you are all ice and iron!" she said, "and you care for nothing
except your wet mud images, and I detest you!"

"My dearest," Manuel answered placidly, "the trouble is that each of us
desires one particular thing over and above other things. Your desire is
for power and a great name and for a king who will be at once your
mouthpiece, your lackey and your lover. Now, candidly, I cannot spare
the time to be any of these things, because my desire is different from
your desire, but is equally strong. Also, it seems to me, as I become
older, and see more of men and of men's ways, that most people have no
especial desire but only preferences. In a world of such wishy-washy
folk you and I cannot hope to escape being aspersed with comparisons to
ice and iron, but it does not become us to be flinging these venerable
similes in each other's faces."

She kept silence a while. She laughed uneasily. "I so often wonder about
you, Manuel, as to whether inside the big, high-colored, squinting,
solemn husk is living a very wise person or a very unmitigated fool."

"I perceive there is something else which we have in common, for I, too,
often wonder about that."

"It is settled, then?"

"It is settled that, instead of ruling little Arles, you are to be Queen
of England, and Lady of Ireland, and Duchess of Normandy and Aquitaine,
and Countess of Anjou; that our token is to be a goose-feather; and
that, I diffidently repeat, you are to get out of my light and interfere
no longer with the discharge of my geas."

"And what will you do?"

"I must, as always, follow after my own thinking--"

"If you complete the sentence I shall undoubtedly scream."

Manuel laughed good-humoredly. "I suppose I do say it rather often, but
then it is true, and the great trouble between us, Alianora, is that you
do not perceive its truth."

She said, "And I suppose you will now be stalking off to some woman or
another for consolation?"

"No, the consolation I desire is not to be found in petticoats. No,
first of all, I shall go to King Helmas. For my images stay obstinately