eyond her jealous doors;
a fat and shapeless bunch of garments topped by thin hair streaked with
ruddy dye, a high white marble brow, an old face deeply lined. The woman
was looking at him keenly, with boring vulture eyes. She spoke swiftly,
in a voice clear-toned and silvery as a bell.

"I heard thee speak.... Once, long years ago, stood I in this place and
heard a boy speak, an elfin, wolf-eyed child, who came out of the night
and spoke with an un-childish tongue. Often since have I thought of him
and the power within him, for though I was young in years yet was I old
in knowledge, and I knew that never had I seen one like him. Into his
hand I put a piece of silver, and I think it was the first that ever he
had touched. Art thou that child?"

"Ay," said Nicanor. "That child was I. So it was thou who first didst
teach me that silver could pay for souls." He thrust a hand into the
pouch that hung at his belt and drew forth a broad piece of silver,
holding it to her. "But I think it must be clean silver that pays for
mine, O Chloris."

The woman flinched oddly. Both had forgotten the rising tide of
excitement around them.

"Nay," she said. "I will not have it back. Canst not leave me the
thought that there was one gift which I gave honestly--or is it with
thee as ever with stony-hearted youth, swift to condemn, slow to
understand?"

"Why should I condemn thee?" said Nicanor. "That is not mine to do until
in me is nothing to condemn. Nay, rather could I pity thee."

The heavy lids opened slightly over Chloris's eyes.

"And wherefore?" she asked with a hard note in her flute-like voice. "If
I pity not myself, why shouldst thou pity? Am I not loved, and have I
not loved greatly? Have I not riches beyond thine imaginings?"

Nicanor laughed low and softly, his keen eyes on the old face.

"Love thou hast never known, O Chloris," he said gently. "In all thy
long life of wanton ease, thy long life in which children might have
leaned upon thy knees and children's voices might have called thee
blessed, love thou hast never known. Who could not pity this? Or thy
name would not be upon the lips of men in the market-place. When men
love, think you they make common talk of what they love? When women
love, keep they not themselves pure for love's pure sake? Ay, truly I
could pity thee, because some day thou wilt so pity thyself, in spite of
thy riches beyond mine imaginings. That is all."

"Thou art over strange," said Chlo