The sorceress purred at this sort of talk, and she rested her head where there seemed a place especially made for it. "I wish I could believe your words, king of my heart. I have to strive so hard, nowadays, to goad you into saying these idiotic suitable dear things: and even when at last you do say them your voice is light and high, and makes them sound as though you were joking." He kissed the thick coil of hair which lay fragrant against his lips. "Do you know, in spite of my joking, I do love you a great deal?" "I would practise saying that over to myself," observed Freydis critically. "You should let your voice break a little after the first three words." "I speak as I feel. I love you, Freydis, and I tell you so." "Yes, but you are no longer a perpetual nuisance about it." "Alas, my dear, you are no longer the unattainable Queen of the country on the other side of the fire, and that makes a difference, certainly. It is equally certain that I love you over and above all living women." "Ah, but, my dearest, who loves you more than any human tongue can tell?" "A peculiarly obstinate and lovely imbecile," says Manuel; and he did that which seemed suitable. Later Freydis sighed luxuriously. "That saves you the trouble of talking, does it not? And you talked so madly and handsomely that first night, when you wanted to get around me on account of the image, but now you do not make me any pretty speeches at all." "Oh, heavens!" said Manuel, "but I am embracing a monomaniac. Dear Freydis, whatever I might say would be perforce the same old words that have been whispered by millions of men to many more millions of women, and my love for you is a quite unparalleled thing which ought not to be travestied by any such shopworn apparel." "Now again you must be putting me off with solemn joking in that light high voice, and there is no faithfulness in that voice, and its talking troubles me." "I speak as I feel. I love you, Freydis, and I tell you so, but I cannot be telling it over and over again every quarter of the hour." "Oh, but very certainly this big squinting boy is the most unloquacious and the most stubborn brute that ever lived!" "And would you have me otherwise?" "No, that is the queer part of it. But it is a grief to me to wonder if you foresaw as much." "I!" says Manuel, jovially. "But what would I be doing with any such finespun policies? My dear, until you comprehend I am the most frank and downright creature that ever lived you do not begin to appreciate me." "I know you are, big boy. But still, I wonder," Freydis said, "and the wondering is a thin little far-off grief." [Illustration] XVII Magic of the Image-Makers