"I carry this lantern," he said, "daytime and nighttime, like my old-time pattern, looking for an honest fellow-being, a thing I could not find in Corinth and doubted to find in Athens. But now I believe I have found a true woman, for I call you a woman, by your leave, though you choose to call yourself immortal. Wherefore, out goes my sceptical glimmer, and if you are willing I will go with you to Athens as your honest friend and true servant; and, indeed, I think I may prove of service, for I know something of the rough edge of the world." "You may come if you choose," Argathona answered, "and you shall give me advice, for I am strange to men and cities." "Faith," said Simon, bluntly, "to begin with, you cannot go as you now are. Women wear other gear in these years of grace. I cannot say that they look better than you do, but truly they look very different." "I shall not go as a woman," Argathona answered. "I shall go as a man." Then, seeing that Simon stared at her with the greatest amazement his face had yet worn, she went on: "Is not a man's life a good life still to live in Greece, as it was in the ancient days?" Had Simon been blessed with a graver temper he could not choose but laugh. "By the rood," he swore, "a man's life is as round a dish and as full of meat as ever, but 'tis never a dish for a maid to nibble at. Why, a man's life is a bustling, brawling business, noisy and jocund. Your true man is ever eating, drinking, loving, fighting. When there be no real wars for him to break heads in, he betters the heavy peace with a tournament." The dryad's eyes looked inquiry, and Simon, guessing what she would know, expanded his matter. "Your tournament," he explained, "is a brave game by which knights who are weary of idleness and quiet times put on their armor and take up their arms, and bang each other lustily in an appointed place just as if they were enemies, though for the most part they are honest friends and bear no malice for thrustings and thwackings." Argathona's eyes widened and brightened as if she desired to win a prize in such kind of diversion, and her words showed her thoughts. "If there be such jolly sports to share yonder," she cried, "then I must play my part in them." Simon really hardly knew whether he ought to laugh or to cry at the simplicity of the witch. "What a devil should a slim maid, be she woman or warlock, do at a tourney?" he gaped. Argathona laughed a little at his bewilderment, and her laughter was pleasant as the piping of summer wind among summer thickets. "Friend," she said, "you have seen that I am no weakling. Truly I have the strength of the strongest amazon that ever drew bow, and the amazons were as strong as the companions of Theseus. And I doubt if the men of to-day have the strength of the fellowship of Theseus."