Folle-Farine shivered where she crouched in the shadow of the doorway; she still said nothing.
The crone mumbled on indifferent of answer, and yet pitiful, gazing into the chamber.
"I have watched him often; he is fair to look at—one is never too old to care for that. All winter, spring, and summer he has lived so hard;—so cold too and so silent—painting that strange thing yonder. He looks like a king—he lives like a beggar. The picture was his god:—see you. And no doubt he has set his soul on fame—men will. All the world is mad. One day in the springtime it was sent somewhere—that great thing yonder on the trestles,—to be seen by the world, no doubt. And whoever its fate lay with would not see any greatness in it, or else no eyes would look. It came back as it went. No doubt they knew best;—in the world. That was in the spring of the year. He has been like this ever since. Walking most nights;—starving most days;—I think. But he is always silent."
The speaker raised her wood and went slowly, muttering as she limped down each steep stair,—
"There must hang a crown of stars I suppose—somewhere—since so many of them forever try to reach one. But all they ever get here below is a crown of straws in a madhouse."
"The woman says aright," the voice of Sartorian murmured low against her ear.
She had forgotten that he was near from the first moment that her eyes had once more fed themselves upon the face of Arslàn.
"The woman says aright," he echoed, softly. "This man will perish; his body may not die, but his brain will—surely. And yet for his life you would give yours?"
She looked up with a gleam of incredulous hope; she was yet so ignorant; she thought there might yet be ways by which one life could buy another's from the mercy of earth, from the pity of heaven.
"Ah!" she murmured with a swift soft trembling eagerness. "If the gods would but remember!—and take me—instead. But they forget—they forget always."