"To-night we babble to the stars and dream vain dreams as other fools have done before us. To-morrow rests—perhaps—with heaven; but, depend upon it, Messire de la Forêt, whatever we may do to-morrow will be foolishly performed, because we are both besotted by bright eyes and lips and hair. I trust to find our antics laughable. Yet there is that in me which is murderous when I reflect that you and she do not dislike me. It is the distasteful truth that neither of you considers me to be worth the trouble. I find such conduct irritating, because no other persons have ever ventured to deal in this fashion with Demetrios."
"Demetrios, already your antics are laughable, for you pass blindly by the revelation of heaven's splendour in heaven's masterwork; you ignore the miracle; and so do you find only the stings of the flesh where I find joy in rendering love and service to Dame Melicent."
"Perion, it is you that play the fool, in not recognising that heaven is inaccessible and doubtful. But clearer eyes perceive the not at all doubtful dullness of wit, and the gratifying accessibility of every woman when properly handled,—yes, even of her who dares to deal in this fashion with Demetrios."
Thus they would sit together, nightly, upon the prow of Perion's ship and speak against each other in the manner of a Tenson, as these two rhapsodised of Melicent until the stars grew lustreless before the sun.
14.
How Perion Braved Theodoret
The city of Megaris (then Theodoret's capital) was ablaze with bonfires on the night that the Comte de la Forêt entered it at the head of his forces. Demetrios, meanly clothed, his hands tied behind him, trudged sullenly beside his conqueror's horse. Yet of the two the gloomier face showed below the count's coronet, for Perion did not relish the impendent interview with King Theodoret. They came thus amid much shouting to the Hôtel d'Ebelin, their assigned quarters, and slept there.
Next morning, about the hour of prime, two men-at-arms accompanied a fettered Demetrios into the presence of King Theodoret. Perion of the Forest preceded them. He pardonably swaggered, in spite of his underlying uneasiness, for this last feat, as he could not ignore, was a performance which Christendom united to applaud.
They came thus into a spacious chamber, very inadequately lighted. The walls were unhewn stone. There was but one window, of uncoloured glass; and it was guarded by iron bars. The floor was bare of rushes. On one side was a bed with tattered hangings of green, which were adorned with rampant lions worked in silver thread much tarnished; to the right hand stood a prie-dieu. Between these isolated articles of furniture, and behind an unpainted table sat, in a high-backed chair, a wizen and shabbily-clad old man. This was Theodoret, most pious and penurious of monarchs. In attendance upon him were Fra Battista, prior of the Grey Monks, and Melicent's near kinsman, once the Bishop, now the Cardinal, de Montors, who, as was widely known, was the actual monarch of this realm. The latter was smartly habited as a cavalier and showed in nothing like a churchman.
The infirm King arose and came to meet the champion who had performed what many generals of Christendom had vainly striven to achieve. He embraced the conqueror of Demetrios as one does an equal.