All of which I told to Herman at the first opportunity. And also that I should never be happy one moment until I had found out what fact, if any, lay behind the story of the King’s Desire.
“What’s the good of finding out,” said Herman gloomily, “if we have to take their everlasting dope on top of it?”
“And within three days of the most sophisticated society on earth,” I reminded him. “They are having the golf tournament at Mira Monte this week. Could you believe it?”
“Oh, I don’t believe a word of it,” he insisted. “This is just one of the tales you’ve made up, and you’ve hypnotized me into going through with it, but I don’t believe it at all.”
V
THE LOVE-LEFT WARD
I was sitting under a toyon tree watching Evarra brew forgetfulness in a polished porphyry bowl, when Herman came by. It was the morning of the Meet. The Cup was wanted for her who was the Ward, and Evarra took a great deal of pains with the brew, heating the bowl slowly and, when the dry leaves began to smoke and give off an odor of young fir, dropping water gently and setting it to steep in the sun. I had hoped to discover what plant it might be, but there was little to be guessed except that it had a blue flower taken in the bud, and smelled like a wood path in the spring. Evarra sat and stirred under the toyon and answered my questions or not as she was inclined.
“Do you know any sort of an herb, Evarra, that will turn gray hair black again?”
“That I do; and black hair gray if you wish it.” But I had not caught the significance of her statement, when Herman came along, bursting full of news. He was looking almost handsome that morning, for he had put on the dress of the Outliers for the first time, and though he had managed it so as to cover more of his skin than was their fashion, it became him very well. Some satisfying quality streamed from him, according with the day. As if he had laid off something besides the dress which had come between him and the effect I had wished him to have on me.
“Come up the trail with me; I have some news for you,” he began. “May she?”
This last was to Evarra. With all the basin of Deep Fern and Leaping Water full of their own folk we had been allowed to move freely about among them, but there was still a form of keeping us under guard.