“Ah, ah!” said Janicot then, “so that is how it is. I perceive you are a romantic. The disorder is difficult to cure. Yet we must have you losing no more wives: there must be an end to the ill luck which follows your matrimonial adventures and causes hypercritical persons to whisper. Yes, since you are a romantic, since all other women upset your equanimity and lead you into bereavements which people, let me tell you, are festooning with ugly surmises, you certainly must have this Melior.” “No,” Florian said, wistfully, “there is an etiquette in these matters. Even if I cared to dabble in sorcery, it would not be quite courteous for me to interfere with the magic which Madame Mélusine has laid upon the high place and her blood relations. It would be meddling in her family affairs, it would be an incivility without precedent, to her who was so kind to me in my childhood.” “You think too much about precedent, Monsieur the Duke. In any event, Mélusine has half forgotten the matter. So much has happened to her, in the last several hundred years, that her mind has quite gone. She cares only to wail upon battlements and to pass through dusky corridors at twilight, predicting the deaths of her various descendants. You can see for yourself that these are not the recreations of a logical person. No, Florian, you are considerate, and it does you great credit, but you would not annoy Madame Mélusine by releasing Brunbelois.” Said Florian, gently: “My intimates, to be sure, address me as Florian. But our acquaintance, Monsieur Janicot, however delightful, remains as yet of such brevity that, really, whether you be human or divine—” “Oh, but, Monsieur the Duke,” replied the other, “but indeed I entreat your pardon for my inadvertence.” And Florian too bowed. “It is merely a social convention, of course. Yet it is necessary to respect the best precedents even in trifles. Well, now, and as to your suggestion, I confess you tempt me—” “Only, you could not free Brunbelois unaided, nor could any living sorcerer. For Mélusine’s was the Old Magic that is stronger than the thin thaumaturgy of these days. Yet I desire to have happy faces about me, so I will give you this Melior for a while.” “And at what price?” “I who am the Prince of this World am not a merchant to buy and sell. I will release the castle, and you may have the girl as a free gift. I warn you, though, that, since she is of the Léshy, at the year’s end she will vanish.” Florian shook his head, smilingly. He knew of course that marriage with one of the Léshy could not be permanent. But this fiend must believe him very simple indeed, if Janicot thought Florian so uninformed as not to know that whoever accepts a gift from hell is thereby condemned to burn eternally: and to perceive this amused Florian. “Ah, Monsieur Janicot, but a Puysange cannot take alms from anybody. No, let us be logical! There must be a price set and paid, so that I may remain under no distasteful and incendiary debts.”