HEN he had entered a little way into Acaire, Florian came to an open place, where seven trees had been hewn down. A brown horse was tethered here, and here seven lilies bloomed with a surprising splendor of white and gold. These stood waist-high about a sedate looking burgess, unostentatiously but very neatly dressed in some brown stuff, which was just the color of his skin. At his feet was a shrub covered with crimson flowers: no sun shone here, the sky was clouded and cast down a coppery glow.
Such was Janicot. Florian saluted him, quite civilly, but with appropriate reserve.
“Come,” Janicot said, smiling, “and is this the rapturous countenance of a bridegroom? I am not pleased with you, Monsieur the Duke, I must have happy faces among my friends.”
“So you also have heard of my approaching marriage! Well, I am content enough, and for me to marry the co-heiress of Nérac seems logical: but in logic, too, I cannot ignore that I ride toward a disappointing business. There is magic in the curiously clothed woman who is mistress of herself, the hour and you: but the prostrate, sweating and submissive meat in a tangle of bed-clothing—!” Florian shrugged.
“In fact,” said Janicot, as if pensively, “I have observed you. You do not enter wholly into the pleasures suitable for men and women: you do not avoid these agreeabilities, but your sampling of them is without self-surrender, and there is something else which you hold more desirable.”
“That is true.” Florian for an instant meditated. Florian shrugged. Then Florian dismounted from his white horse, and tethered it. Here was the one being in whom you might confide logically. Florian told Janicot the story of how, in childhood, Florian had ascended to the high place, and had seen the Princess Melior, whom always since that time his heart had desired.
And Janicot heard him through, with some marks of interest. Janicot nodded.
“Yes, yes,” said Janicot. “I do not frequent high places. But I have heard of this Melior, from men a long while dead, and they said that she was beautiful.”
“Then they spoke foolishly,” replied Florian, “because they spoke with pitiable inadequacy. Now I do not say that she is beautiful. I do not speak any praise whatever of Melior, because her worth is beyond all praising. I am silent as to the unforgotten beauty of Melior, lest I cry out against that which I love. When I was but a child her loveliness was revealed to me, and never since then have I been able to forget the beauty of which all dreams go envious. I jest with women who are lovable and nicely colored; they have soft voices, and their hearts are kind: but presently I yawn and say they are not as Melior.”