“Not I,” laughed the girl. “How know I that, for all their solid riches, they love the gold of the buttercups in April? that, for all their good feeding, they would pluck and eat blackberries from the hedges along with a juicy apple? that, for all their health they could, race the dewy meadows bare-footed, face the August sun uncovered, or meet a January snow-storm unshrinking. Sooner be myself with the likings I know, than they with tastes more than perchance foreign to me.” “My child,” said Peregrine gaily, “I appreciate your confidence in yourself. An’ a man have confidence in himself ’twill lead him far.” She looked at him from beneath her eyelashes. “Whither hath it led you?” she asked demurely. This caused Peregrine a slight inward wince, brought his light statement closer to book. In a sudden flash he saw his words not too wise. Truly may confidence in himself lead a man far, and yet no nearer his goal. Her question, drawn at a venture, shot very near home. Yet he had no mind to betray this thought to the laughing girl. “Truly,” he said airily enough, “at the moment it hath led me to the company of a very fair egoist.” Head on one side she surveyed him, doubtful, questioning. “I know not that word,” she said. “I see it meaning one exceeding conscious of their own personality,” remarked Peregrine. “An’ you be not conscious of yours, I stand rebuked.” She mused a moment. “An’ you mean that I know well that I am Méllisande the Fair, as men call me, that I take pleasure in my beauty and my health, then you need no rebuke.” “Indeed,” said Peregrine smiling at her _naïveté_, “I mean that very precisely.” “Then,” quoth she, with her ever ready laugh, “the word suits well enough.” She dropped to silence a moment; then spoke. “Whither fare you now?” “I fear me,” said Peregrine, “that I fare on a very elusive quest.” “What manner of quest?” “The quest of a woman.” “Oh!” Méllisande opened dark eyes, braced herself against the ladder. “Tell me more,” said she interested. “There is little enough to tell,” returned Peregrine, “and that being so, the quest appears the more mad.” Briefly he gave her the history of the past months, eliminating matter he held undesirable to repeat. She listened, gravely intent. “I have heard tell of the woman,” she said as he came to an end of the story, “veiled, and with quiet eyes.” “You have heard tell of her!” cried Peregrine.