“The Countess Aiella. Her affair, you will be saying, whether flowers die or live; she has all that income from the Arjen estates, and doesn’t have to provide for her brothers, who married those two heiresses up in Bregatz, but a man could still weep for the waste of the flowers. Ser, give a thought to it, how in the world we never have enough of beauty and those who destroy any part of it take something from all other people. Is it not true, now?” He paused on his knees and looked up at Rodvard (who was growing interested indeed, but now felt the coldness of the Blue Star telling him that this earthy philosopher was not thinking of beauty at all, but only reciting a lesson and wondering whether his pretty speech might not draw him a gift from this poetical-looking young man.) “I do not doubt it,” he said, “but I have no money to give away,” and turned to go, but he had not travelled a dozen paces when he met one who must be the Countess Aiella herself by the little double coronet in her drag-edge hat. Rodvard doffed to the coronet, noting in the fleeting second of his bow the passionate, bewildering beauty of the face surrounded by curves of light-brown hair. She stopped. “Put it on,” she said, and he looked up at her. The cloak did not conceal the fact that she was still dressed for evening; a leg showed through the slit in her dress. “I have not seen you before.” “No, your grace. I only arrived last night.” “Your badge says you are a clerk.” “I am a writer to the Count Cleudi for this conference.” (He dared to look into the eyes a finger-joint length below his own; behind them there was boredom with a faint flicker of interest in himself and the thought of having spent a bad night; a weary thought.) “Count Cleudi, oh. You might be him in disguise.” She laughed a laugh that trilled up the scale, slipped past him with a motion as lithe as a gazelle’s and up the path into the red-doored pavilion. Rodvard looked after her until he heard the gardener cackle, then, a little angry with himself, stamped on round the turn of the path, trying to recover the glory of the morning. Some of it came back, but not enough to prevent him thinking more on the comparison between this countess and Lalette than the difference between this day and any other day; and so he reached Cleudi’s door, with its device of a fishing bird carved into the wood.