"And he cares for that!" she thought, with a sigh half of wonder, half of sorrow.
She did not reason on it, but it seemed to her that his works were greater hanging on their bare walls where the spiders wove.
"Who is 'he'?" a voice asked behind her.
She turned and saw a small and feeble man, with keen, humorous eyes, and an elfin face, delicate in its form, malicious in its meaning.
She stood silent, regarding him; herself a strange figure in that lordly place, with her brown limbs, her bare head and feet, her linen tunic, her red knotted girdle.
"Who are you?" she asked him curtly, in counter-question.
The little old man laughed.
"I have the honor to be your host."
A disappointed astonishment clouded her face.
"You! are you Sartorian?" she muttered—"the Sartorian whom they call a prince?"