“A woman,” said Eleanore, looking at him with a half-smile, and echoing his tone,—“a woman doubtless is always to be pitied; and yet what man deems it so? Master David, ye are all born of women, and ye are all reared by them. Afterwards, in youth, ye wed, use us as your playthings for an hour, and then leave us in your gray dwellings, while ye fare forth to more manly sports and exploits. There in solitude we bear and rear again, and later our maidens wed and our sons depart from us, and for the last time, in our age, we are left alone to die. Truly, David, thou mayest well pity!” David’s wide mouth curved in a bitter smile. “Even so, Madame Eleanore. And now, for fifteen years, I have lived as a woman lives. Mayhap by now I know her life better than other men—if, indeed, I am a man, being but little taller than the animals. And all these things said I to my dead friend here in my hand.” “’Tis now fifteen years since thou camest with my lord to Crépuscule?” “Ay, fifteen. I was then a boy of about such age. Fifteen years in Le Crépuscule by the sea! It is a lifetime.” Madame sighed. Then her face brightened again as she looked down at the dwarf. “What was the life of thy youth, David? ’Tis a tale I have never heard.” “’Tis but a little tale. Like my dead butterfly, I wandered. I come of a race of dwarfs,—all straight-backed, know you, and not ill to look upon. My father was a mountebank. My mother, who measured greater than was customary among us, cooked and sewed and travelled with us whithersoever we went in our wagon. When I was young,—at the age of five or thereabouts,—I began to assist my father in his entertainments. When I was fifteen we were in Rennes for the jousting season, and there thy lord saw me, bought me, and brought me back to you, lady, to be your merry jester. But indeed my laughter hath run low, of late. Long years I have bravely jested through; but now the Twilight spell is creeping over me, and merriment rises no more in my heart. Indeed, I question if I should not beg leave of thee to go forth into the world again for a little time, to learn once more the song of joy. Yet when thou art near, and I look out upon the sea, and behold the sun lifting his glory out of the eastern hills, I ever think I cannot go,—I cannot leave this gentle home of melancholy.” “Thou art free, David, if freedom is mine to bestow upon thee. Indeed, I could not ask that any one remain in this sad and quiet place, of any than his own will. Go thou forth into the world! Go forth to joy and life and laughter. Fill thy little heart again with jests. Forget the brooding silence of Le Crépuscule, and laugh through the broad world to thy heart’s content. Yet we shall miss thee sorely, little man.”