There was a quarrel, and a cruel sentence about to be executed; and then the minstrel came. His fame had come before him, and so the despot, in half-drunken playfulness, left the deciding of the quarrel to him. He was brought to the head of the table, and the princess was led in; and so these two met face to face. Here Thyrsis paused, and asked, “Are you interested?” “Go on, go on,” said Corydon. So he read about his princess, who was the embodiment of all the virtues of the unknown goddess of his fancy. She was proud yet humble, aloof yet compassionate, and above all ineffably beautiful. And as for the minstrel-- “The minstrel was fair and young. His heart was of love and fire.” He took his harp, and first he pacified the quarrel, and then he sang to the lady. He sang of love, and the poet’s vision of beauty; but most of all he sang of the free life of the open. He sang of the dreams and the spirit-companions of the minstrel, and of the wondrous magic that he wields-- “Secrets of all future ages Hover in mine ecstasy; Treasures never known to mortals Hath my fancy hid for thee!” He sang the spells that he would weave for her, the far journeys she should take-- “For thy soul a river flowing Swiftly, over golden sands, With the singing of the steersman Stealing into wonderlands!” Section 2. This song was as far as Thyrsis had written, and he paused. Corydon was sitting with her hands clasped, and a look of enthrallment upon her face. “Oh, beautiful! beautiful!” she cried. A thrill of pleasure went through the poet. “You like it, then?” he said. “Oh, I like it!” she answered. And then she gazed at him, with wide-open eyes of amazement. “But you! You!” she exclaimed. “Why not I?” he asked. “How in the world did you do it? Where did you get it from?” “It is mine,” said Thyrsis, quickly. “But I can’t imagine it! I had no idea you were interested in such things!” “But how could you know what I am interested in?” “I see how you live--apart from everybody. And you spend all your time in books!” Thyrsis suddenly recollected something which had amused him very much. Corydon had been reading “Middlemarch,” and had told him that Dr. Casaubon reminded her of him. “And so I’m still just a bookworm to you!” he laughed. “But isn’t your interest in things always intellectual?” she asked. “Then you suppose I’m doing this just as an exercise in technique?” he countered. “It’s taken me quite by surprise,” said Corydon. “We have three faculties in us,” Thyrsis propounded--“intellect, feeling, and will; and to be a complete human being, we have to develop all of them.” “But you spend so much time piling up learning!” “I need to know a great many things,” he said. “I’m not conscious of studying anything I don’t need for my purpose.” “What is the purpose?” she asked. He touched the precious manuscript. “This,” he said. There was a pause.