“At any rate,” I said, “before you guarantee the price of the King’s Desire, you would best have a look at it.” IX HOW THE KING’S DESIRE WAS DUG UP, AND BY WHOM How Herman injected into the hot plans of Mancha this cold doubt I do not know. If he accepted it as a check to his enterprise there was no visible abatement of its urgency. He was forever and fatiguingly busy; crossing over Singing Ford and returning between two days. Passing beyond Moon Crest he visited Alderhold and Bent Bow, fetching a circle almost to Broken Tree to make adherents. He was still and hungry as to his inner want, but outwardly as noisy as a bear, rapping the trunks of hollow trees or prodding the soft earth with his hammer. If in the wood at Deep Fern or Deer Lake Hollow he met with his young men, he passed them without greeting. It is doubtful if he saw them. Plainly the man was ravined with desire. All this time he gave no trouble to the Ward or her keepers. When she went among the young fern, between the budding willows, he did not seek her, never talked of himself in her company. It was as if the eye of his mind, so fixed upon the Mate, passed over the Maid she was. Otherwise I do not know how he could have withstood her, for she went flushed and glorious. Trastevera, I know, had expected tears and pining. Watching, she was relieved to find the girl still sustained by ecstasy, grew more at ease and trusted Ravenutzi. For the rest of the Outliers the hesitation of Herman’s enterprise on the probable unworth of the jewels proved no disappointment. It was, in fact, a means of hurrying the movement for removing it from its present cache. They were curious to discover if the Treasure really had such an intrinsic value as Herman had taken for granted. Even though it proved of no value to the House-Folk, it was something the Far-Folk wanted very much. The keeping of it provided an occupation, and the promised unearthing an excitement for which their long truce with the Far-Folk gave them an appetite. In any case it must come up and be hidden again, or they must administer the Cup to Daria a second time. This involved a wrenching of their sympathies they were unwilling to endure, even if it lay in justice to twice enforce her. They were the readier for the enterprise since it appeared not necessarily to involve the acceptance of Herman’s idea.