She meant more than that he had contrived some warmth for what must otherwise have seemed to Zirriloë a cold returning. She was thankful that it had been his wrinkles and streaked grayness to meet the Ward rather than the hot eyes and shining curls of Mancha. “I do not know how it is,” said she, “I never pitied myself for being the Ward, but somehow this pink girl seems to need to be pitied.” “Any bond,” said Ravenutzi, “will wear at times,” and said it with a wistful back-stroke of self-commiseration that caused me to think swiftly of several things. I reflected that in his own place among the Far-Folk he must have been more of a man than the Outliers conceded to any smith. Next, that the condition of tame cat, which his hostageship incurred, pressed more heavily on him than they were in the habit of thinking. Also I thought of the tall woman, but I did not deliver the comforting reassurance about her which came readily to my tongue. There was so intimate and personal a quality in his brief surrender to our sympathy that it made the mention of another woman an intrusion. It began to seem likely that she could not be so much to him as he to her. That would account both for her anxiety not to have him know of her inquiry, and for his not having mentioned her to Trastevera. We continued walking up and down under the linked pines, without many words, but with a community of understanding, which led later to Trastevera’s opening to him more of her anxieties than she realized. In the course of an hour or two the women brought the Ward back again, and made her a little entertainment of compliments and songs. There was a hard, bright moon in a pale ring, and the breath of the young year stealing through the forest. Prassade sang, and Evarra’s man and old Noche. The women sang all together, rocking, as they sat, but Ravenutzi sang the most and most movingly. Mancha sang nothing; sat off fondling his weapon, and drank the girl’s looks. She was very lovely, had got back a little of her saint’s separateness which became her, and the conscious support of being admired. If she had looked at him, she might have seen his heart swimming under his gaze, but I could not see that she did. What favor she was disposed to show went to Ravenutzi, praising his songs and affecting to be affected. I thought she built too much on the mere incident of his having been the only one of the men to meet her. It was a mere accident growing out of the nature of his work, but it was natural, perhaps, to have rewarded him for it. The women took her away early, and nothing whatever had happened.