s though to pass on, there is a mystery attached:
and the one way to solve it is to pursue this irritating fellow. Some
(reasoning thus) assert that squinting Manuel was aware of this axiom,
and that he respected it in all his dealings with Freydis and Alianora.
Either way, these theorists did not ever get any verbal buttressing from
Dom Manuel. Niafer dead and lost to him, he, without flaunting any
unexampled ardors, fell to loving Alianora: and now that Freydis had put
off immortality for his kisses, the tall boy had, again, somewhat the
air of consenting to accept this woman's sacrifice, and her loveliness
and all her power and wisdom, as being upon the whole the handiest
available substitute for Niafer's sparse charms.

Yet others declare, more simply, that Dom Manuel was so constituted as
to value more cheaply every desire after he had attained it. And these
say he noted that--again in the inexplicable way these things fall
out,--now Manuel possessed the unearthly Queen she had become, precisely
as Alianora had become, a not extraordinary person, who in all commerce
with her lover dealt as such.

"But do you really love me, O man of all men?" Freydis would say, "and,
this damned Niafer apart, do you love me a little more than you love any
other woman?"

"Why, are there any other women?" says Manuel, in fine surprise. "Oh, to
be sure, I suppose there are, but I had forgotten about them. I have not
heard or seen or thought of those petticoated creatures since my dear
Freydis came."

The sorceress purred at this sort of talk, and she rested her head where
there seemed a place especially made for it. "I wish I could believe
your words, king of my heart. I have to strive so hard, nowadays, to
goad you into saying these idiotic suitable dear things: and even when
at last you do say them your voice is light and high, and makes them
sound as though you were joking."

He kissed the thick coil of hair which lay fragrant against his lips.
"Do you know, in spite of my joking, I do love you a great deal?"

"I would practise saying that over to myself," observed Freydis
critically. "You should let your voice break a little after the first
three words."

"I speak as I feel. I love you, Freydis, and I tell you so."

"Yes, but you are no longer a perpetual nuisance about it."

"Alas, my dear, you are no longer the unattainable Queen of the country
on the other side of the fire, and that makes a difference, certainly.
It