And Horvendile, at the end of Gerald’s repentant narrative, observed: “I comprehend. You have been, in brief, the devil of a fellow and a sad rip among the ladies.” “Oh, but you wrong me! Such a suspicion is very horrifying and quite unjust! No, it is merely that not even Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, and the Well-beloved of Heavenly Ones, is immune to over-constant temptation.” And at that, Horvendile shrugged. “A god with so many fine titles is not to be argued with. In any case, do you be of good cheer, for even after all these regrettable amours, and beyond the mire that my swine delight in, the Princess still awaits you.” “But in what place?” said Gerald, “and how is she called?” “She awaits in every place so long as youth remains—” “Upon my word, now, Horvendile, but that is the truth, and a rather plaguing truth!” “—However, this especial Princess is called, as it chances, Evangeline—” “Oh, come!” said Gerald, “come now, but really, my dear fellow—!” “—And at your first sight of her you will be enraptured. For this Princess Evangeline is so surpassingly lovely that she excels all the other women your gaze has ever beheld—” “I know,” said Gerald. “Her face is the proper shape, it is appropriately colored everywhere, and it is surmounted with an adequate quantity of hair.” “—Nor,” Horvendile went on, with rising enthusiasm, “is it possible to find any defect in her features—” “No: for, doubtless, the colors of this beautiful young girl’s two eyes are nicely matched, and her nose stands just equidistant between them. Beneath this is her mouth; and she has also a pair of ears.” “In fine,” said Horvendile, with his hands aflourish above his attendant pigs, “the Princess is young, she exhibits no absolute deformity anywhere, and your enamored glance will therefore perceive in her no fault, because of that magic which in the Marches of Antan the Two Truths exercise over all vigorous young persons.” “You very movingly depict a woman of extraordinary and, I have not the least doubt, resistless charm. Nevertheless, I cannot any longer be wandering about a place wherein there are only two truths, and where the magic of these Two Truths is forever meddling with my young body, for the gods of the Marches of Antan do not content me.” Then Horvendile replied: “Men have found many gods. But these gods pass. They descend into Antan, and they do not return. One god and one goddess alone do not pass. They remain eternally, if but to weave eternally a mist about the seeing and the thinking of the young, and thus to secure the existence of yet other young persons within a month or so.”