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I will demolish you without compunction, as I would any other vermin." "Oh, brave, brave!" sneered the bishop, "to fling away your life, and perhaps mine too, for an idle word " But at that he fetched a sob. "How foolish of you! and how like you!" he said, and Perion wondered at this prelate's voice. "Hey, gentlemen!" cried Ayrart de Montors, "a moment if you please!"
"Ay," Ayrart de Montors said, very briefly; and his tone evinced his willingness to dispense with further conversation. Perion of the Forest was an unclean thing which the bishop must touch in his necessity, but could touch with loathing only, as a thirsty man takes a fly out of his drink.
Such nourishment cured them of indecision, and Ayrart de Montors had presently ascended the papal throne under the title of Adrian VII, servant to the servants of God. His days of military captaincy were over. Demetrios deplored the loss of a formidable adversary, and jeered at the fact that the vicarship of heaven had been settled by six hens.
He cackled thinly, saying: "A jest or so is privileged in this high hour. Yet we ought not to make a jest of matters which concern the Church. Am I not right, Ayrart? Oh, no, this merciless Demetrios is assuredly that very Antichrist whose coming was foretold.
He had put love out of his life, in common with all other weaknesses which might conceivably hinder the advancement of Ayrart de Montors. In consequence, he had climbed far. He was not dissatisfied. It was a man's business to make his way in the world, and he had done this.
And yet, I think that Perion recalled what Ayrart de Montors had said of women and their love, so long ago: "They are more wise than we; and always they make us better by indomitably believing we are better than in reality a man can ever be." I think that Perion knew, now, de Montors had been in the right.
Meanwhile she sets about the quickest way to cleanse him and to heal his bruises. They are more wise than we, and at the bottom of their hearts they pity us more stalwart folk whose grosser wits require, to be quite sure of anything, a mere crass proof of it; and always they make us better by indomitably believing we are better than in reality a man can ever be." Now Ayrart de Montors dismounted.
Then in a little while she withdrew her lips from his lips. "Cover my face, Ayrart. It may be I shall weep presently. Men must not see the wife of Perion weep. Cover my face, for he is going now, and I cannot watch his going."
To do him justice, he did not know of Battista's makeshift. The cardinal remained when they had gone. Seated in a king's chair, Ayrart de Montors meditated rather wistfully upon that old time when he, also, had loved Melicent whole-heartedly. It seemed a great while ago, made him aware of his maturity.
Thus the months passed, and the happenings of another year were chronicled; and as yet neither Perion nor Ayrart de Montors came to Nacumera, and the long plain before the citadel stayed tenantless save for the jackals crying there at night. "I wonder that my enemies do not come," Demetrios said. "It cannot be they have forgotten you and me. That is impossible."
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