uel seemed perturbed, and he called
Melicent to him, and she obediently scrambled into her father's lap.

There was silence in the Room of Ageus. The queer small boy sat leaning
back in the chair which little Melicent had just left. He sat with his
legs crossed, and with his gloved hands clasping his right knee, as he
looked appraisingly at Melicent. He displayed a beautiful sad face, with
curled yellow hair hanging about his shoulders, and he was dressed in a
vermilion silk coat: at his left side, worn like a sword, was a vast
pair of shears. He wore also a pointed hat of four interblended colors,
and his leather gloves were figured with pearls.

"She will be a woman by and by," the strange boy said, with a soft and
delicate voice, "and then she too will be coming to us, and we will
provide fine sorrows for her."

"No, Hinzelmann," Count Manuel replied, as he stroked the round
straw-colored head of little Melicent. "This is the child of Niafer. She
comes of a race that has no time to be peering out of dubious windows."

"It is your child too, Count Manuel. Therefore she too, between now and
her burial, will be wanting to be made free of my sister Suskind's
kingdom, as you have been made free of it, at a price. Oh, very
certainly you have paid little as yet save the one lock of your gray
hair, but in time you will pay the other price which Suskind demands. I
know, for it is I who collect my sister Suskind's revenues, and when the
proper hour arrives, believe me, Count Manuel, I shall not be asking
your leave, nor is there any price which you, I think, will not be
paying willingly."

"That is probable. For Suskind is wise and strange, and the grave beauty
of her youth is the fulfilment of an old hope. Life had become a tedious
matter of much money and much bloodshed, but she has restored to me the
gold and crimson of dawn."

"So, do you very greatly love my sister Suskind?" says Hinzelmann,
smiling rather sadly.

"She is my heart's delight, and the desire of my desire. It was she for
whom, unwittingly, I had been longing always, since I first went away
from Suskind, to climb upon the gray heights of Vraidex in my long
pursuit of much wealth and fame. I had seen my wishes fulfilled, and my
dreams accomplished; all the godlike discontents which ennobled my youth
had died painlessly in cushioned places. And living had come to be a
habit of doing what little persons expected, and youth was gone out of
me, and I, that