“Wisdom,” said the King, “was miraculously bestowed upon me a great while ago as a free gift, which I had done nothing to earn and deserve no credit for not having been able to avoid. And my way of talking, and using similes and syntax,—along with phraseology and monostiches and aposiopesis and such-like things,—is another gift, also, which I employ without really noticing the astonishment and admiration of my hearers. So do you not talk so much, but come to the point.” “I too, then, in your Majesty’s transcendent phrase, shall do what was expected of me yesterday. I ask the hand of the King’s daughter in marriage.” “That is customary,” wise Helmas said, with approval, “and you show a very fine sense of courtesy in adhering to our perhaps old-fashioned ways. Let the lord of Puysange be taken to his betrothed.” _8._ _At the Top of the World_ “You will find her,” they had said, “yonder,”—and, pointing westerly, had left him. So Florian went unaccompanied through the long pergola overgrown with grape-vines, toward the lone figure at the end of this tunnel of rustling greenness and sweet odors. A woman waited there, in an eight-sided summer-house, builded of widely-spaced lattice-work that was hidden by vines. Through these vines you could see on every side the fluttering bright gardens of Brunbelois, but no living creature. This woman and Florian were alone in what was not unlike a lovely cage of vines. Florian seemed troubled. It was apparent that he knew this woman. “I am flesh and blood,” the woman said,—“as you may remember.” “Indeed, I have been singularly fortunate—But upon reflection, I retract the adverb. I have been marvelously fortunate; and I have no desire to forget it.” “She also, the girl yonder, is flesh and blood. You will be knowing that before long.” Florian looked at this woman for some while. “Perhaps that is true. I think it is not true. I have faith in the love which has endured since I was but a child. If that fails me, I must die. And I shall die willingly.” He bowed low to this woman, and he passed on, through the summer-house, and out into the open air. He came thus to a wall, only breast high, and opened the gate which was there, and so went on in full sunlight, ascending a steepish incline that was overgrown with coarse grass and with much white clover. Thus Florian came to the unforgotten princess and to the beauty which he had in childhood, however briefly, seen. There was in this bright and windy place, which smelled so pleasantly of warm grass, nothing except a low marble bench without back or carving. No trees nor any bushes grew here: nothing veiled this place from the sun. Upon this sunlit mountain-top was only the bench, and upon the bench sat Melior, waiting. She waited—there was the miracle,—for Florian de Puysange.