"Do you think that I'm a gargoyle?" queried Susette hastily.
"Certainly not."
"Then, why did you call me one?"
So he had to console her again, and took a certain joy in it, although she protracted the dear, silly dispute by telling him that he had chained her to him simply so that he could torture her, and that he had wanted to spare the princess such suffering, and that therefore it was clear that he loved the princess more.
"Why, no," said Gaspard; "as for that, she's really in love with that young Sieur de Mâcon."
But thereupon Susette wanted to know how he came to be so well informed as to the contents of the lady's heart. So the smith gave over any attempt to reason, except in the silences of his brain; and just confined his outer activities to cooings and caresses, as Susette would have him do.
Yet his thought would persist.
That was the trail of a great truth he had almost stated back there, about the place held by desire in the origins of love and beauty. He had watched a certain Italian named Botticelli do a mural painting in the duke's private chapel. Lord, there was a passion! He had helped in the building of the cathedral at Sens. Lord, what fervor the builders put into their work! They were all like young lovers.
The smith sat up. It was almost as if he had cornered that glinting moth of doubt.
Yes, they had been like young lovers—Sieur Botticelli, in pursuit of the beautiful; the church-builders in pursuit of God. But—and here was the point—what if their desire had been satisfied? The quest would have stopped. The vision of the artist would have faded. The steeple would have fallen down. For desire would have ceased to exist.