is equally certain that I love you over and above all living women."

"Ah, but, my dearest, who loves you more than any human tongue can
tell?"

"A peculiarly obstinate and lovely imbecile," says Manuel; and he did
that which seemed suitable.

Later Freydis sighed luxuriously. "That saves you the trouble of
talking, does it not? And you talked so madly and handsomely that first
night, when you wanted to get around me on account of the image, but now
you do not make me any pretty speeches at all."

"Oh, heavens!" said Manuel, "but I am embracing a monomaniac. Dear
Freydis, whatever I might say would be perforce the same old words that
have been whispered by millions of men to many more millions of women,
and my love for you is a quite unparalleled thing which ought not to be
travestied by any such shopworn apparel."

"Now again you must be putting me off with solemn joking in that light
high voice, and there is no faithfulness in that voice, and its talking
troubles me."

"I speak as I feel. I love you, Freydis, and I tell you so, but I cannot
be telling it over and over again every quarter of the hour."

"Oh, but very certainly this big squinting boy is the most unloquacious
and the most stubborn brute that ever lived!"

"And would you have me otherwise?"

"No, that is the queer part of it. But it is a grief to me to wonder if
you foresaw as much."

"I!" says Manuel, jovially. "But what would I be doing with any such
finespun policies? My dear, until you comprehend I am the most frank and
downright creature that ever lived you do not begin to appreciate me."

"I know you are, big boy. But still, I wonder," Freydis said, "and the
wondering is a thin little far-off grief."

[Illustration]

XVII

Magic of the Image-Makers

It was presently noised abroad that Queen Freydis of Audela had become a
human woman; and thereafter certain enchanters came to Upper Morven, to
seek her counsel and her favor and the aid of Schamir. These were the
enchanters, Manuel was told, who made images, to which they now and then
contrived--nobody seemed to know quite how, and least of all did the
thaumaturgists themselves,--to impart life.

Once Manuel went with Freydis into a dark place where some of these
magic-workers were at labor. By the light of a charcoal fire, clay
images were ruddily discernible; before these the enchanters moved
unhumanly clad, and doing things which, mercifully perhaps, were veiled
from M