“Eh, madame, I am not so sure of that. Certainly, the Author of those folk who have figured thus far in your history has not devoted His talents to creating perfect people.” She wondered at him, and showed as much in the big blue eyes which had troubled so many men’s sleep. “Since time began, there has lived no nobler person or more constant lover than my lord Guiron.” “Oh, yes, Sir Guiron, I grant you, is very nearly immaculate,” said Horvendile; and he yawned. “My friend, you have always served him faithfully. We two cannot ever forget how much we have owed in the past to your quick wits and shrewd devices. Yet now your manner troubles me.” Dame Ettarre spoke the truth, for, knowing the man to be unhappy—and suspecting the reason of his unhappiness, too—she would have comforted him; but Horvendile was not in a confiding mood. Whimsically he says: “Rather, it is I who am troubled, madame. For envy possesses me, and a faint teasing weariness also possesses me, because I am not as Sir Guiron, and never can be. Look you, they prepare your wedding-feast now, your former sorrows are stingless; and to me, who have served you through hard seasons of adversity, it is as if I had been reading some romance, and had come now to the last page. Already you two grow shadowy; and already I incline to rank Sir Guiron and you, madame, with Arnaud and Fregonde, with Palmerin and Polinarda, with Gui and Floripas—with that fair throng of noted lovers whose innocuous mishaps we follow with pleasant agitation, and whom we dismiss to eternal happiness, with smiling incredulity, as we turn back to a workaday world. For it is necessary now that I return to my own country, and there I shall not ever see you any more.” Ettarre, in common with the countryside, knew the man hopelessly loved her; and she pitied him to-day beyond wording. Happiness is a famed breeder of magnanimity. “My poor friend, we must get you a wife. Are there no women in your country?”