The friar’s mock horror was surprising, an excellent jest that fell like a blunted bolt from the steel of a vigorous manhood. The Lord Flavian ran on. "Shall I fence with an infidel?" he asked. "Sire, a man may be a man without the creed of Athanasius." "How much of me do you understand?" Fra Balthasar cleared his throat. "The Lady Duessa, sire, is a rose of joy." "Monk!" "My lord, it was your dictum that you are ever ingenuous. I echo you." "Need I confess to you on such a subject?" "Nay, sire, you have the inconsistency of a poet." "How so?" "Well, well, one can sniff rotten apples without opening the door of the cupboard." The younger man jerked away, and went striding betwixt the array of frescoes with something of the wild vigour of a blind Polyphemus. Balthasar, subtle sophist, watched him from the angle of his eye with the sardonic superiority of one well versed in the contradictions of the world. He had scribbled a shrewd sketch of the passions stirring in his patron’s heart. Had he not heard from the man’s own lips of the white-faced elf of the pine woods and her vengeance? And the Lady Duessa! Fra Balthasar was as wise in the gossip of Gilderoy as any woman. "Sire," he said, as the aristocrat turned in his stride, "I ask of you a bold favour." "Speak out." "Suffer me to paint your mood in words." The man stared, shrugged his shoulders, smiled enigmatically. "Try your craft," he said. Balthasar began splashing in a foreground with irritable bravado. "My lord, you were a fool at twenty," were his words. "A thrice damned fool," came the echo. Balthasar chuckled. "And now, messire, a golden chain makes a Tantalus of you. Life crawls like a sluggish river. You chafe, you strain, you rebel, feed on your own heart, sin to assert your liberty. Youth slips from you; the sky narrows about your ears. Well, well, have I not read aright?" "Speak on," quoth the man by the altar. "Ah, sire, it is the old tale. They have cramped up your youth with book and ring; shut you up in a moral sarcophagus with a woman they call your wife. You burn for liberty, and the unknown that shines like a purple streak in a fading west. Ah, sire, you look for that one marvellous being, who shall torch again the youth in your heart, make your blood burn, your soul to sing. That one woman in the world, mysterious as the moon, subtle as the night, ineffably strange as a flaming dawn. That woman who shall lift you to the stars; whose lips suck the sap of the world; whose bosom breathes to the eternal swoon of all sweet sounds. She shall light the lust of battle in your heart. For her your sword shall leap, your towers totter. Chivalry should lead you like a pillar of fire out of the night, a heroic god striving for a goddess." The Lord of Avalon stood before the high altar as one transfigured. Youth leapt in him, red, glorious, and triumphant. Balthasar’s tongue had set the pyre aburning. "By God, it is the truth," he said.