But the mother did not hear. She sat musing and unsure, and her heart grew weaker still, for she looked down at her child and he was so beautiful with this fine new stuff against his soft golden skin and his red cheeks that she yielded and said, “What is your least price, then, for more I cannot pay?” Then the pedlar named a sum, and it was not too high and not as high as she had feared, and her heart leaped secretly. But she shook her head and looked grave and named half the sum, as the custom was in bargaining in those parts. This was so little that the pedlar took the cloth back quickly and put it in its place and made to go away again, and then the mother, remembering her fair child, called out a sum a little more, and so haggling back and forth and after many false starts away the pedlar made, he threw down his pack again and pulled forth the bit, agreeing at last to somewhat less than he had asked, and so the mother rose to fetch the money from the cranny in the earthen wall where it was kept. Now all this time the man sat idly by, singing, and his high voice made soft and small and stopping sometimes to sup down his hot water that he drank always after he had eaten, and he took no part in this bargain. But the pedlar being a very clever fellow and eager to turn to his account every passing moment, took care to spread out seemingly in carelessness a piece of grass cloth that he had, and it was that cloth made of wild flax which cools the flesh upon a hot day in summer, and in color it was like the sky, as clear, as blue. Then the pedlar glanced secretly at the man to see if the man saw it, and he said half laughing, “Have you bought a robe for yourself yet this summer? For if you have not, I have it for you here, and at a price I swear is cheaper than it can be bought in any shop in town.” But the man shook his head and a dark look came down upon his idle, pretty face, and he said with bitterness, “I have nothing wherewith to buy myself anything in this house. Work I have and nothing else, and all I gain for it is more to feed, the more I work.” Now the pedlar had passed through many a town and countryside and it was his trade to know men’s faces and he saw at a glance that this man was one who loved his pleasure, and that he was like a lad held down to life he was not ready for, and so he said in seeming kindliness and pity, “It is true that I can see you have a very hard life and little gain, and from your fine looks I see it is too hard a life. But if you buy yourself a new robe you will find it like a very potent new medicine to put pleasure in your heart. There is nothing like a new summer robe to put joy in a man, and with that ring upon your finger shined and cleaned and your hair smoothed with a bit of oil and this new robe upon you, I swear I could not see a prettier man even in a town.”