o go off so
terribly in their looks as that two-faced cat has done since the first
time I saw her prancing on her tall horse and rolling her snake eyes at
you. As for being fond of me, I trust her exactly as far as I can see
her."

"Yet, Niafer, I have heard you declare, time and again--"

"But if you did, Manuel, one has to be civil."

Manuel shrugged, discreetly. "You women!" he observed, discreetly.

"--As if it were not as plain as the nose on her face--and I do not
suppose that even you, Manuel, will be contending she has a really good
nose,--that the woman is simply itching to make a fool of you, and to
have everybody laughing at you, again! Manuel, I declare I have no
patience with you when you keep arguing about such unarguable facts!"

Manuel, exercising augmented discretion, now said nothing whatever.

"--And you may talk yourself black in the face, Manuel, but nevertheless
I am going to name the child Melicent, after my own mother, as soon as a
priest can be fetched from the mainland to christen her. No, Manuel, it
is all very well for your dear friend to call herself a gray witch, but
I do not notice any priests coming to this house unless they are
especially sent for, and I draw my own conclusions."

"Well, well, let us not argue about it, my dear."

"Yes, but who started all this arguing and fault-finding, I would like
to know!"

"Why, to be sure I did. But I spoke without thinking. I was wrong. I
admit it. So do not excite yourself, dear snip."

"--And as if I could help the child's not being a boy!"

"But I never said--"

"No, but you keep thinking it, and sulking is the one thing I cannot
stand. No, Manuel, no, I do not complain, but I do think that, after all
I have been through with, sleeping around in tents, and running away
from Northmen, and never having a moment's comfort, after I had
naturally figured on being a real countess--" Niafer whimpered sleepily.

"Yes, yes," says Manuel, stroking her soft crinkly hair.

"--And with that silky hell-cat watching me all the time,--and looking
ten years younger than I do, now that you have got my face and legs all
wrong,--and planning I do not know what--"

"Yes, to be sure," says Manuel, soothingly: "you are quite right, my
dear."

So a silence fell, and presently Niafer slept. Manuel sat with hunched
shoulders, watching the wife he had fetched back from paradise at the
price of his youth. His face was grave, his lips were puckered and