"That may very well be, sir, but it is much more comfortable to live with than is your opinion, and living is my occupation just now. Dying I shall attend to in its due turn, and, of the two, my opinion is the more pleasant to die with. Thereafter, if your opinion be right, I shall never even know that my opinion was wrong: so that I have everything to gain, in the way of pleasurable anticipations anyhow, and I have nothing whatever to lose, by clinging to the foolish fond old faith which my fathers had before me," said Manuel, as sturdily as ever.
"Yes, but how in this world—?"
"Ah, sir," says Manuel, still smiling, "in this world men are nourished by their beliefs; and it well may be that, yonder also, their sustenance is the same."
But at this moment came Reeri (a little crimson naked man, having the head of a monkey) with his cock in one hand and his gnarled club in the other. Necessarily the Blood Demon's arrival put an end to their talking, for that turn.
XXI
Touching Repayment
So Count Manuel's youth went out of him as he became more and more intimate with Misery, and an attachment sprang up between them, and the two took counsel as to all Manuel's affairs. They often talked of the royal ladies whom Manuel had loved and loved no longer.
"For at one time," Manuel admitted, "I certainly fancied myself in love with the Princess Alianora, and at another time I was in love with Queen Freydis. And even now I like them well enough, but neither of these royal ladies could make me forget the slave girl Niafer whom I loved on Vraidex. Besides, the Princess and the Queen were fond of having their own way about everything, and they were bent on hampering me with power and wealth and lofty station and such other obstacles to the following of my own thinking and my own desires. I could not endure the eternal arguing this led to, which was always reminding me, by contrast, of the quiet dear ways of Niafer and of the delight I had in the ways of Niafer. So it seemed best for everyone concerned for me to break off with Freydis and Alianora."