"Fair Mistress Damaris," he said, "your brother is my friend, but to-day I would speak of my friend's friend, and that is myself, and your servant, lady. To-morrow I go from this garden of the world, this no-other Paradise, this court where Dian reigns, but where Venus comes as a guest, her boy in her hand. Where I go I know not, nor what thread Clotho is spinning. Strange dangers are to be found in strange places, and Jove and lightning are not comfortable neighbors. Ulysses took moly in his hand when there came to meet him Circe's gentlemen pensioners, and Gyges's ring not only saved him from peril, but brought him wealth and great honor. What silly mariner in my ship hath not bought or begged mithridate or a pinch of achimenius wherewith to make good his voyage? And shall not I, who have much more at stake, procure me an enchantment?" The lady's fringed lids lifted in one swift upward glance. "Your valor, sir, should prove your surest charm. But there is the new alchemist--" "He cannot serve my need, hath not what I want. I want--" He hesitated for a moment; then spoke on with a certain restrained impetuosity that became him well: "There is a honey-wax which, being glazed about the heart, holdeth within it, forever, a song so sweet that the chanting of the sirens matters not; there is that precious stone which, as the magnet draweth the iron, so ever constraineth Honor, bidding him mount every breach, climb higher, higher, higher yet! there is that fragrant leaf which oft is fed with tears, and often sighing worn, yet, so worn, inspireth valor more heroical than that of Achilles! Such a charm I seek, sweet lady." Mistress Damaris Sedley, a favorite of the Countess of Pembroke, and a court lady of some months' standing, could parley euphuism with the best, and yet to-day it seemed to her that plain English might better serve the turn. However: "Good gentleman," she answered, sedately, "I think that few are the bees that gather so dainty a wax, but if they be flown to Hymettus, then to Hymettus might one follow them; also that precious stone may be found, though, alack! often enough a man is so poor a lapidary that, seeing only the covering of circumstances, he misses the true sapphire! and for that fragrant leaf, I have heard of it in my day--" "It is called truelove," he said. Damaris kept to the card: "My marvel, sir, is to hear you speak as though you had not the charm you seem to seek. One blossom of the tree Alpina is worth all store of roses; one ruby outvalueth many pearls; he who hath already the word of magic needeth to buy no Venus's image; and Sir Mortimer Ferne, secure in Dione's love, saileth, methinks, in crystal seas, with slight danger from storm and wreck."