"It is then, sire," she said, looking down almost shyly, and speaking with some hesitation,—"it is, when the great things are done, to do the little things that are left undone. It is not given to all to do deeds that sound to the ends of the earth, but there are little things that a great man may do greatly so that they shall ring in the furthest heights of heaven."
"What things are those? I do not understand."
"Perhaps I speak foolishly, yet I feel so strongly, that a man like you would be sure to find them if you sought."
"But where—where am I to seek?"
"Amongst your people. If you were to go down to them so that they might not know you, you would find wrongs to right, wrongs that are little in the eyes of man but great before Heaven. Then you would know in your heart that the greatest acts are those which are done with the loftiest purpose and by the greatest soul."
"You would have me a very Haroun-al-Raschid," he said, with a laugh, for he felt that their talk was getting dangerously elevated, and he was ashamed of his weakness in letting it go so far.
"And why not?" she answered, smiling, as though her mood had changed with his. "What monarch had a happier life or left a happier memory behind him? and it is for the little things that he is remembered. But I see my father," she added, "I need detain your majesty no longer."
With the prettiest curtsey in the world she left him, and Kophetua returned to his apartments with his peace of mind considerably disturbed. The whole day he was the prey of the most conflicting thoughts, but above all to the humiliating conviction that he had been saying to this bewitching Frenchwoman things which he had never breathed in his life to any one but Turbo, his bosom friend. The idea she had suggested was fascinating enough. It would be very pleasant to try, and to tell her of his success afterwards; and at all events an excitement of any kind would be good for him, and serve to get her out of his mind a little.
Which of these considerations weighed most with him perhaps he hardly knew himself. He made and unmade his mind fifty times before nightfall; but still it is certain that as the moon rose Trecenito found himself stealing out of the private entrance of his gardens with his hair dishevelled and unpowdered, and his person concealed with a wide slouch hat, and a voluminous cloak or burnouse which he used on his hunting expeditions.