The song you have made of
courtesy is tinsel. Sing now in verity."

Richard laughed, though he was sensibly nettled and perhaps a shade
abashed. Presently he sang again.

Sang Richard:

"Catullus might have made of words that seek
With rippling sound, in soft recurrent ways,
The perfect song, or in remoter days
Theocritus have hymned you in glad Greek;
But I am not as they,--and dare not speak
Of you unworthily, and dare not praise
Perfection with imperfect roundelays,
And desecrate the prize I dare to seek.

"I do not woo you, then, by fashioning
Vext analogues 'twixt you and Guenevere,
Nor do I come with agile lips that bring
The sugared periods of a sonneteer,
And bring no more--but just with, lips that cling
To yours, in murmuring, 'I love you, dear!'"

Richard had resolved that Branwen should believe him. Tinsel, indeed!
then here was yet more tinsel which she must receive as gold. He was
very angry, because his vanity was hurt, and the pin-prick spurred him
to a counterfeit so specious that consciously he gloried in it. He was
superb, and she believed him now; there was no questioning the fact,
he saw it plainly, and with exultant cruelty; then curt as lightning
came the knowledge that what Branwen believed was the truth.

Richard had taken just two strides toward this fair girl. Branwen
stayed motionless, her lips a little parted. The affairs of earth and
heaven were motionless throughout the moment, attendant, it seemed to
him; and to him his whole life was like a wave that trembled now at
full height, and he was aware of a new world all made of beauty and of
pity. Then the lute fell from his spread out hands, and Richard
sighed, and shrugged.

"There is a task set me," he said--"it is God's work, I think. But I
do not know--I only know that you are very beautiful, Branwen," he
said, and in the name he found a new and piercing loveliness.

And he said also: "Go! For I have loved many women, and, God help me!
I know that I have but to wheedle you and you, too, will yield! Yonder
is God's work to be done, and within me rages a commonwealth of
devils. Child! child!" he cried, "I am, and ever was, a coward, too
timid to face life without reserve, and always I laughed because I was
afraid to concede that anything is serious!"

For a long while Richard lay at his ease in the lengthening shadows of
the afternoon.

"I love her. She thinks me an elderly imbecile with a flat an