"I must, as always, follow after my own thinking—"
"If you complete the sentence I shall undoubtedly scream."
Manuel laughed good-humoredly. "I suppose I do say it rather often, but then it is true, and the great trouble between us, Alianora, is that you do not perceive its truth."
She said, "And I suppose you will now be stalking off to some woman or another for consolation?"
"No, the consolation I desire is not to be found in petticoats. No, first of all, I shall go to King Helmas. For my images stay obstinately lifeless, and there is something lacking to each of them, and none is the figure I desire to make in this world. Now I do not know what can be done about it, but the Zhar-Ptitza informs me that King Helmas, since all doubt of himself has been put out of mind, can aid me if any man can."
"Then we must say good-bye, though not for a long while, I hope."
"Yes," Manuel said, "this is good-bye, and to a part of my living it is an eternal good-bye."
Dom Manuel left his images where the old Hebrew captain appeared to regard them with violent dumb anguish, and Manuel took both of the girl's lovely little hands, and he stood thus for a while looking down at the Princess.
Said Manuel, very sadly:
"I cry the elegy of such notions as are possible to boys alone. 'Surely,' I said, 'the informing and all-perfect soul shines through and is revealed in this beautiful body.' So my worship began for you, whose violet eyes retain at all times their chill brittle shining, and do not soften, but have been to me always as those eyes which, they say, a goddess turns toward ruined lovers who cry the elegy of hope and contentment, with lips burned bloodless by the searing of passions which she, immortal, may neither feel nor comprehend. Even so do you, dear Alianora, who are not divine, look toward me, quite unmoved by anything except incurious wonder, the while that I cry my elegy.