Page:The cream of the jest; a comedy of evasions (IA creamofjestcomed00caberich).pdf/30

 "And as Mark's Queen," says Horvendile, intent on his conceit, "you strayed with Tristran in the sunlit glades of Morois, that high forest, where many birds sang full-throated in the new light of spring; as Medeia you fled from Colchis; and as Esclairmonde you delivered Huon from the sardonic close wiles of heathenry, which to you seemed childish. All poets have had these fitful glimpses of you, Ettarre, and of that perfect beauty which is full of troubling reticences, and so, is somehow touched with something sinister. Now all these things I likewise see in you, Ettarre; and therefore, for my own sanity's sake, I dare not concede that you are a human being."

The clerk was very much in earnest. Ettarre granted that, insane as his talk seemed to her; and the patient yearning in his eyes was not displeasing to Ettarre. Her hand touched his cheek, quickly and lightly, like the brush of a bird's wing.

"My poor Horvendile, you are in love with fantasies. There was never any lady such as you dream of." Then she left him.

But Horvendile remained at the parapet, peering out over broad rolling uplands.