thought of the 'sun-browned
boy-bred wench.'" She laughed a little unsteadily at the sudden
crimsoning of his face. "And I am still ashamed--and ashamed of being
ashamed--that I showed you so plainly what my heart held for you...
Elfgiva's tongue has stabbed me sore... Beloved, can you not be content,
for now, with knowing that I have loved no man before you and shall love
none after you?"

Bending, he kissed her lips with the utmost tenderness. "I am well
content," he said. And after that they spoke only of the future, when
the first period of his Marshalship should be over and he should be free
to take his bride back to the fields and woods of Ivarsdale, and the
gray old Tower on the hill.

Chapter XXX. When The King Takes a Queen

Moderately wise Should each one be,
But never over-wise;
For a wise man's heart
Is seldom glad
If he is all-wise who owns it.
Ha'vama'l.

Out under the garden's spreading fruit trees, the little gentlewomen of
Elfgiva's household were amusing themselves with the flock of
peacocks that were the Abbey's pets. In a shifting dazzling mass of
color--blended blue and green and golden fire--all but one of the
brilliant birds were pressing around Candida, who scattered largess from
a quaint bronze vase, while the one whose vanity was greater even than
its appetite was furnishing sport for Dearwyn as she strutted after him
in merry mimicry, lifting her satin-shod feet mincingly and trailing her
rosy robes far behind her on the grass. The old cellarer, to whose care
the birds fell except during those hours when the brethren were free for
such indulgences, watched the scene in grinning delight; and Leonorine
laughed gaily at them over the armful of tiny bobbing lap-dogs, whose
valiant charges she was engaged in restraining. The only person who
seemed out of tune with the chiming mirth was the Lady Elfgiva herself.
Among the blooming bushes she was moving listlessly and yet restlessly,
and each rose she plucked was speedily pulled to pieces in her nervous
fingers. A particularly furious outburst from the dogs, followed by
peals of ringing laughter, brought her foot down in a stamp of utter
exasperation.

"Will you not observe my feelings, if you have none of your own?" she
demanded. "Leonorine, take those wretched dogs out of my hearing.
Dearwyn, lay aside your nonsense and go ask Gurth if he has heard
anything yet of Teboen." She stamped again, angrily, as her