Thus said Guivric the Sage; and Holden, a spent man, much hurt but very proud, who now foreknew his fate, replied with resolute smiling:
"Blessed above all men that live am I, in that in the days of my folly I have been lord of the Delta of Radegonde. I know this, Guivric, as you may not ever know it,—not you, who are as old as I, and who have only wisdom to look back upon."
Guivric the Sage answered very soberly:
"That is true. For, to have been wise throughout one's youth becomes by and by a taunt; and to remember it is a disease."
And Holden the Brave said now, with another sort of smiling:
"There is in attendance upon everybody a physician that heals all disease. Pending his coming, old friend, I mean to beat you at one more game of chess."
Whereon these aged men fell to such staid diversion as was suited to their remainder of life. But slim gray-eyed Radegonde danced merrily with her new lover.
IX
A THEME WITH VARIATIONS
"I expose myself entire: 'tis a body where, at one view, the veins, muscles and tendons are apparent, every of them in its proper place; here the effect of a cold; there of the heart beating, very dubiously. I do not write my own acts, but myself and my essence.... Because Socrates had alone digested to purpose the precept of his god, 'to know himself,' and by that study had arrived at the perfection of setting himself at nought, he only was reputed worthy the title of a sage."