"Who art thou?" she said. And though she was a great lady and the daughter of that noble house, she was yet a girl, and scarce beyond her childhood, and she drooped her head before his glance.
"Nicanor, thy slave," he answered, but his voice was not a slave's voice.
"Why art thou here?" she asked him. "This is mine own place, where none but I and my women come."
"I crave thy pardon, lady," he said; and told her how he came. In turn, her eyes rested on his face; and he, meeting them, felt his pulses leap to a sudden shock which sent the blood back pounding to his heart. For they were wandering eyes, awake and seeing, yet which slept, with no light of reason in them. So then he understood why the name of their lady was spoken throughout the household in hushed tones as of one dead; why she was so closely hidden from the eyes of the world. And she was the Lady Varia,—the lord Eudemius's only child,—the last of his great house, fair, futile flower.
"Nicanor," she repeated, with a pretty halting on the word. Her voice was low and dreaming, more tender than a dove's. "Where have I heard that name? Why, Nerissa hath told me thou art he who telleth tales to the men and maids at evening. See, it is evening now. Wilt not tell me too a tale? I should like it, for sometimes I am very lonely."
She was far above him as the stars; but she was a woman, and he a man—and the first tale was told within a garden. She held out a hand to him, and he took it and touched it to his forehead, and it fluttered in his and then lay still. She led him to a bench by the sleeping lake, a child whose will might not be thwarted, and bade him tell her tales such as he told her men and maidens. This the sure instinct of his art taught him he might not do, since those tales which held them thralled were not for such as she. But he locked his hands about his knee, and thought an instant, his head flung back and his eyes intent and eager, with an odd shining deep within them.
So his tale began, in the deep-voiced chant which had rung out by moor and camp-fire, hushed now, that the peace of the evening's stillness might not be broken. She sat quite still beside him, her hands clasped childlike in her lap, listening with parted lips. The dusk deepened, and the golden moon hung over the surrounding wall and flooded the garden in wan hoary light. The pool lay a lake of silver in a black fringe of trees. The night flowers breathed forth drowsy perfume, making heavy the summer air. Nicanor's voice rolled on, endlessly through the scented darkness....
Until Nerissa, the old nurse, came upon them suddenly, clamoring for her charge. Varia sprang to her and kissed her, with fond coaxing arms about her, so that she relented, since her lady's will was law. She dismissed Nicanor, and he crossed his arms before his face, and went away from Paradise.
Varia hid her face on her nurse's shoulder—poor groping soul that found its happiness in things so small—and said:
"He hath told me tales, Nerissa, so strange and wonderful that never was aught like them in all the world. I will have him to come again, for I am so happy—so happy! And thou shalt not tell, for then he could not come, and he is not to suffer for it. Promise, Nerissa, dear Nerissa—it is but a little thing!"