"Do you remember," he said, "that you called your love for me a great wind."
"Yes, I remember."
"A great wind blows everything before it, even the words of men."
Now Felice was a woman who catches up phrases too easily and speaks them too trippingly. So she answered, "If you love me you will do anything for me," for that was her test of love, that whoever cared for her should bend ever to her will.
"We must serve each other," said the Archer, to whom the winds in all those years had whispered many secrets. "When equality in love or friendship ceases the end of joy is near. But remove the cloud from your forehead, dear love, and let us hunt the blue gentians in the forest glades."
"Oh, no! let us go to the village fair," said Felice.
"What! Exchange those cool, dim places, flower-scented, for the glare and noise of a fair?"
"No one can see me in the forest," remarked Felice, turning her head from side to side and gazing in a mirror.
"But I see you! Isn't that enough!"
Felice sighed, for she liked admiration, and the Golden Archer said no more about gathering gentians, but went with her to the fair, which was a sacrifice, for he loved fresh air and solitude; and the crowds, the heat, and the dust made his head ache. Then, too, he was not used to fairs, and more than once made Felice uncomfortable by the questions he asked. She was always afraid that he would betray his origin when anyone spoke of the wind. Someone, indeed, said it was south, and the Golden Archer with a smile corrected him. "It is east," he remarked. "Oh, what difference does it make!" Felice cried crossly.