f talking to him was very real to her. She saw him with
the dream-endowed eyes of the Kelt and, embarrassing though it might be
to him, and unreal though it made him feel, he had to accept the fact
that, for her, he was clothed in a sort of shine. He saw, too, that she
could not do without some sort of shine in her life.

"Tell me all about it," he said. "You don't mind talking to a stranger
about these things?"

"You have never been a stranger to me, Professor Kraill. And I don't
believe there is such a thing as a stranger, really. I like to think of
the way the knights always went about ready to interfere with a good
stout sword when they saw anyone in trouble."

And so she talked to him, and as she talked his quick mind gained an
impression of her going about sordid ways and small woman tasks in
knightly armour. After awhile he said something unexpected. It made her
impatient for it showed that he was thinking of her. She was thinking
only of Louis.

"You know, you make the years slip away," he said. "I have dreamed that
women might go shoulder to shoulder with men, standing up straight and
strong."

"Yes, I know," she said softly. "I think many a time I've very
deliberately stood up straight when I wanted to lie down and cry my eyes
out, just because I got the idea of a woman knight from those lectures
of yours. And your talk about the softness of women rather goaded me. I
_wouldn't_ be soft."

"Soft! You're not soft," he interrupted.

"But think how expensive it is!" she said with a voice that shook a
little. "It took a lifetime of discipline and two weak men to make me
hard. I know now, very well, that Louis has been softened, weakened by
me. To save him I think I must crumple up."

She caught her breath sharply.

"And I don't see how I can," she added.

"One might pretend," he said slowly, looking reflectively at her face.

"I couldn't. I can't pretend anything. That's the worst of me. And it
seems so wrong to me that, to make one human being strong, another must
be weak. And it seems to me that the weak thing kills the strong in the
end. Like ivy, you know, choking out the life of an oak."

"I don't think he is likely to kill you."

"I very much wish he would, except that I dare not leave him. I have
weighed it all up very carefully, and I feel it would be better to die
than live this way. Sometimes I feel I shall get unclean--right inside.
I can't explain it. There are things in Louis I can't be