“Methinks,” said he, regarding me sternly, “that in yonder ivy-clad halls might dwell some lady fair! Tell me, is it not so?”
He stretched a thin arm out, in the sleeve of my smallest pajamas, and pointed a slender finger at the interior of my castle of dreams. Alas, after all it was empty! My old melancholy came back to me.
“No, my brothers,” said I, “no maid has ever passed yon door. No, nor ever will.”
L’Olonnois bent his flaxen head in dignified and manly sympathy. “I see,” said he, “our brother in his youth has, perhaps, been deceived by some fair one!”
Upon which I left them for my own room.
If two buccaneers in my castle slept well that night, a third did not. Anopheles might go hang. I did not fancy my new microscope. I doubted if my last violin were a real Strad. I did not like the last music my dealers had sent out to me. My studies of Confucius and Buddha might go hang, and my new book as well. For now, before me, came the face of a certain pirate’s aunt, and she was indeed a lady fair. And I knew full well—as I had known all these years, although I had tried to deceive myself into believing otherwise—that gladly as I had exchanged the city for the wilderness, with equal gladness would I exchange my leisure, all my wealth, all my belongings, for a moment’s touch of her hand, a half-hour of talk heart-to-heart with her, so that, indeed, I might know the truth; so that, at least, I might have it direct from her, bitter though the truth might be.