Eudol soon waxed fatherly, as was his custom. He twitted Igraine on the temerity of her venture with the senile and pedantic jocosity of an old man. He said things that would have been impertinent on the tongue of a youngster, and exerted to the full that eccentric fad of age, the supposition that youth needs pleasant patronage and nothing more. Old men, holding young folk to be fools, reserve to their rusty brains the privilege of seeming wise. They are content to straddle the crawling, leather-jointed circumspection that they call knowledge. The bird flutters to his mate, sings, soars, and is taken before night by the fowler. The snail creeps his rheumy round covered with the slime and slobber of prudence, to rot in the end under a tree-stump, unless some good throstle cracks him prematurely on a stone. Eudol had something of the snail about him, but he assayed none the less to ape the soaring of youth with a very ragged pair of wings. That morning he flew with a senile eagerness for Igraine's favour, and thought himself a match for any young man in the matter of light chivalry. "Come now, my dear," he said, "let us have a good look at you." "Well, sir?" "My word, you make a gorgeous nun. Who ever saw such eyes under a hood before! My dear, you are quite foolhardy to go pilgrimaging alone; men are such rogues, and you have such a pretty face." There was a cringing tone about the old sinner that made Igraine thoroughly despise him. He seemed to combine elderly bravado with smooth servility, qualities peculiarly obnoxious to the girl's spirit. She had never liked or trusted Eudol overmuch in the past, but she was at pains to be civil to him now, seeing that he might serve her in sundry ways. She took his speeches with outward graciousness, and laughed at him hugely in her heart. He began to lecture her in rather egotistical fashion. "You must remember, my dear," he said, "that I am a man of the world, and one whose experience may be relied upon. I may tell you that my judgment is much valued by your good uncle Radamanth, a man of much sagacity, but yet one who lacks just that subtle insight into events that I may say has always been my special characteristic. I am so experienced that I may deserve the infinite honour of advising you if you care to tell me where you are going. I have had so much to do with the world, that I can tell you the best tavern in any town this side of the Thames where clean and honest lodging may be had. I can inform you as to tolls, prices, customs, bye-laws. Are you soon returning to Winchester?" Igraine shook her head at him. "Who have you been quarrelling with, my dear?" "Myself most." "To think of it, syrup quarrelling with honey! What will your Lord Gorlois do?" Igraine stifled the question on the instant. "Master Eudol, leave that name alone if you want more of my company." "Pardon, my dear, pardon. I did not know it was so unpleasant a topic." "I hate the very name of him."