I turned, bowing low. The King arched his brows. It may well be that he had had enough of me already, and that he was not well pleased to stumble on me again and in this place. But he said nothing, merely turning his eyes to Nell in question.

"You know him, Sir," said she, throwing herself into a chair.

"Yes, I know him," said the King. "But, if I may ask without presumption, what brings him here?"

Nell looked at the pair of us, the King and Simon Dale, and answered coolly,

"My invitation."

"The answer is all sufficient," bowed the King. "I'm before my time then, for I received a like honour."

"No, he's after his," said she. "But as you heard, Sir, I was urging him to go."

"Not on my account, I pray," said the King politely.

"No, on his. He's not easy here."

"Yet he outstayed his time!"

"We had a matter of business together, Sir. He came to ask something of me, but matters did not prove to be as he thought."

"Indeed you must tell me more, or should have told me less. I'm of a mighty curious disposition. Won't Mr Dale sit?" And the King seated himself.

"I will beg your Majesty's permission to depart," said I.

"All requests here, sir, lie with this lady to grant or to refuse. In this house I am a servant,--nay, a slave."

Nell rose and coming to the side of the King's chair stood there.

"Had things been other than they are, Mr Dale would have asked me to be his wife," said she.

A silence followed. Then the King remarked,

"Had things been other than they are, Mr Dale would have done well."

"And had they been other than they are, I might well have answered yes,"

said Nell.

"Why yes, very well," said the King. "For Mr Dale is, I'm very sure, a gentleman of spirit and honour, although he seems, if I may say so, just now rather taciturn."

"But as matters are, Mr Dale would have no more of me."

"It's not for me," said the King, "to quarrel with his resolve, although I'm free to marvel at it."

"And asks no more of me than leave to depart."

"Do you find it hard, madame, to grant him that much?"

She looked in the King's face and laughed in amus.e.m.e.nt, but whether at him or me or herself I cannot tell.

"Why, yes, mighty hard," said she. "It's strange how hard."

"By my faith," said the King, "I begin to be glad that Mr Dale asked no more. For if it be hard to grant him this little thing, it might have been easy to grant him more. Come, is it granted to him?"

"Let him ask for it again," said she, and leaving the King she came and stood before me, raising her eyes to mine. "Would you leave me, Simon?"

she cried.

"Yes, I would leave you, madame," said I.

"To go whither?"

"I don't know."

"Yet the question isn't hard," interposed the King. "And the answer is--elsewhere."

"Elsewhere!" cried Nell. "But what does that mean, Sir?"

"Nay, I don't know her name," said the King. "Nor, may be, does Mr Dale yet. But he'll learn, and so, I hope, shall I, if I can be of service to him."

"I'm in no haste to learn it," cried Nell.

"Why no," laughed the King.

She turned to me again, holding out her hand as though she challenged me to refuse it.

"Good-bye, Simon," said she, and she broke into a strange little laugh that seemed devoid of mirth, and to express a railing mockery of herself and what she did.

I saw the King watching us with attentive eyes and brows bent in a frown.

"Good-bye," said I. Looking into her eyes, I let my gaze dwell long on her; it dwelt longer than I meant, reluctant to take last leave of old friends. Then I kissed her hand and bowed very low to the King, who replied with a good-natured nod; then turning I pa.s.sed out of the room.

I take it that the change from youth to manhood, and again from full manhood to decline, comes upon us gradually, never ceasing but never swift, as mind and body alike are insensibly transformed beneath the a.s.sault of mult.i.tudinous unperceived forces of matter and of circ.u.mstances; it is the result we know; that, not the process, is the reality for us. We awake to find done what our sleepy brains missed in the doing, and after months or years perceive ourselves in a second older by all that period. We are jogged by the elbow, roused ruthlessly and curtly bidden to look and see how we are changed, and wonder, weep, or smile as may seem best to us in face of the metamorphosis. A moment of such awakening came to me now; I seemed a man different from him who had, no great number of minutes before, hastened to the house, inspired by an insane hope, and aflame with a pa.s.sion that defied reason and summed up life in longing. The lackeys were there still, the maid's smile altered only by a fuller and more roguish insinuation. On me the change had pa.s.sed, and I looked open-eyed on what I had been. Then came a smile, close neighbour to a groan, and the scorn of my old self which is the sad delirium wrought by moving time; but the lackey held the door for me and I pa.s.sed out.

A noise sounded from above as the cas.e.m.e.nt of the window was thrown open. She looked out; her anger was gone, her emotion also seemed gone.

She stood there smiling, very kindly but with mockery. She held in either hand a flower. One she smelt and held her face long to it, as though its sweetness kept her senses willing prisoners; turning to the other, she smelt it for a short instant and then drew away, her face, that told every mood with unfailing aptness, twisted into disappointment or disgust. She leant out looking down on me; now behind her shoulder I saw the King's black face, half-hidden by the hangings of the window.

She glanced at the first flower, then at the second, held up both her hands for a moment, turned for an instant with a coquettish smile towards the swarthy face behind, then handed the first flower with a laugh into a hand that was stretched out for it, and flung the second down to me. As it floated through the air, the wind disengaged its loose petals and they drifted away, some reaching ground, some caught by gusts and carried away, circling, towards the house-tops. The stalk fell by me, almost naked, stripped of its bloom. For the second flower was faded, and had no sweetness nor life left in it. Again her laugh sounded above me, and the cas.e.m.e.nt closed.

I bent and picked up the stalk. Was it her own mood she told me in the allegory? Or was it the mood she knew to be in me? There had been an echo of sorrow in the laugh, of pity, kindness, and regret: and the laugh that she uttered in giving the fresh bloom to the King had seemed pure derision. It was my love, not hers, that found its symbol in the dying flower and the stalk robbed of its glory. She had said well, it was as she said; I picked up what she flung and went on my way, hugging my dead.

In this manner then, as I, Simon the old, have shewn, was I, Simon the young, brought back to my senses. It is all very long ago.

CHAPTER X

JE VIENS, TU VIENS, IL VIENT