He came fully awake with a final jerk, swinging feet to the floor in the twilight; stood up, made a light, and not daring to go on with his self-questionings, pecked a little at the gelid remains of his noon viands, while speculating on Cleudi’s intrigue. But the Count had so buried the line of his plan that nothing could be made of this, either; Rodvard went to seek Tuolén, in the hope that he might have some light. Vain hope; the butler’s cabinet was dark and everyone else encountered in the corridors was hurrying, hurrying, with burdens here and there, in preparation for the grand ball. There was an atmosphere of anticipatory excitement that built up along Rodvard’s nerve-chains until he stepped forth into the spring eve to escape it. Out there, the evening had turned chill, with a damp breeze off the Eastern Sea that spoke of rain before sun. All the flowers seemed to have folded their wings around themselves to meet it, and Rodvard felt as though nature had turned her back. He longed for a voice, and as a girl’s form came shadowy around a turn of the path, he gave her good-evening and asked if he might bear her burden. “Ah, no, it is not needed,” said she, drawing back; but a shaft of light from a window caught them both and there was mutual recognition, she being the breakfast chambermaid, whose name was Damaris. “Oh, your pardon, Ser,” she said. “It is most good of you,” and let him take her package, which was, in truth, heavy. “Why, this must be gold or lead or beef, not flowers as it should be on festival eve,” he said, and she trilled a small laugh before answering that festival it might be for those badged with coronets or quills, but for her class it was a night of labor—“and it is not gold, or I would run away with it, but one of those double bottles of Arjen fired-wine for the box of the Count Cleudi, whom you serve.” She turned her head, and in the light which threw across the path from another window, he caught a glint of her eyes. (She was very friendly after a week of bringing him breakfasts, in which he had treated her as courteously as though she were high born.) “Will you have no festival at all, then?” he asked. “Oh, yes, tomorrow afternoon, when all the court’s asleep. In the evening when they wake, it will be duty again.” They had reached the door of the great hall; within workmen were attaching flowers to the bowered dais where the musicians would play, there was a sound of hammering from somewhere along the balcony behind the boxes, and Tuolén the high butler was revolving in the midst of the dancing floor, pointing where a flower-chain should be draped or a chair placed. His movement was that almost-prance which Cleudi had demonstrated. The girl’s face turned toward Rodvard (her eyes suddenly said she wished him to ask her something, he could not quite make out what, they were so quickly withdrawn, but it was connected with the festival).