Manuel,
stoutly, "in all these months, nor in any of these last days that have
passed as years. And when my love spurred me to make your image, Niafer,
my love loaned me unwonted cunning. Even by ordinary, they tell me, I
have some skill at making images: and while not for a moment would I
seem to boast of that skill, and not for worlds would I annoy you by
repeating any of the complimentary things which have been said about my
images,--by persons somewhat more appreciative, my dear, of the toil and
care that goes to work of this sort,--I certainly think that in this
instance nobody has fair reason to complain."

She looked at his face now: and she noted what the month of living with
Beda, with whom a day is as a year, had done to the boy's face which she
remembered. Count Manuel's face was of remodeled stuff: youth had gone
out of it, and the month of years had etched wrinkles in it, success had
hardened and caution had pinched and self-complacency had kissed it. And
Niafer sighed again, as they sat reunited under leafless trees by the
steel-colored Wolflake.

"There is no circumventing time and death, then, after all," said
Niafer, "for neither of us is now the person that ascended Vraidex. No
matter: I love you, Manuel, and I am content with what remains of you:
and if the body you have given me is to your will it is to my will."

But now three rascally tall ragged fellows, each blind in one eye, and
each having a thin peaked beard, came into the opening before the gray
hut, trampling the dead leaves there as they shouted for Mimir. "Come
out!" they cried: "come out, you miserable Mirmir, and face those three
whom you have wronged!"

Dom Manuel rose from the bank of the Wolflake, and went toward the
shouters. "There is no Mimir," he told them, "in Dun Vlechlan, or not at
least in this peculiarly irrational part of the forest."

"You lie," they said, "for even though you have hitched a body to your
head we recognize you." They looked at Niafer, and all three laughed
cruelly. "Was it for this hunched, draggled, mud-faced wench that you
left us, you squinting old villain? And have you so soon forgotten the
vintner's parlor at Neogreant, and what you did with the gold plates?"

"No, I have not forgotten these things, for I never knew anything about
them," said Manuel.

Said one of the knaves, twirling fiercely his moustachios: "Hah,
shameless Mimir, do you look at me, who have known you and your blind
son Oriand