hat carried me to the door. Now, having made my choice,
I was on fire to be gone; yet once I turned my head and saw the King
sitting still in his chair, his head resting on his hands, and a slight
smile on his lips. He saw me look, and nodded his head. I bowed, turned
again, and was gone.

Since then I have not seen him, for the paths that crossed diverged
again. But, as all men know, he carried out his gospel. There he sat
till his life's end, whether by God's grace or the Devil's help I know
not. But there he sat, and never did he empty his basket lest, having
given all, he should have nothing to carry to market. It is not for me
to judge him now; but then, when I had the choice set before me, there
in his own palace, I passed my verdict. I do not repent of it. For good
or evil, in wisdom or in folly, in mere honesty or the extravagance of
sentiment, I had made my choice. I was of the mind of M. de Fontelles,
and I went forth to wait till there should be a King whom a gentleman
could serve. Yet to this day I am sorry that he made me tell him of my
choice.

CHAPTER XXVI

I COME HOME

I have written the foregoing for my children's sake that they may know
that once their father played some part in great affairs, and, rubbing
shoulder to shoulder with folk of high degree, bore himself (as I
venture to hope) without disgrace, and even with that credit which a
ready brain and hand bring to their possessor. Here, then, I might well
come to an end, and deny myself the pleasure of a last few words indited
for my own comfort and to please a greedy recollection. The children, if
they read, will laugh. Have you not seen the mirthful wonder that
spreads on a girl's face when she comes by chance on some relic of her
father's wooing, a faded wreath that he has given her mother, or a
nosegay tied with a ribbon and a poem attached thereto? She will look in
her father's face, and thence to where her mother sits at her
needle-work, just where she has sat at her needle-work these twenty
years, with her old kind smile and comfortable eyes. The girl loves her,
loves her well, but--how came father to write those words? For mother,
though the dearest creature in the world, is not slim, nor dazzling, nor
a Queen, nor is she Venus herself, decked in colours of the rainbow, nor
a Goddess come from heaven to men, nor the desire of all the world, nor
aught else that father calls her in the poem. Indeed, what father wrote
is something