"Speak out."
"Suffer me to paint your mood in words."
The man stared, shrugged his shoulders, smiled enigmatically.
"Try your craft," he said.
Balthasar began splashing in a foreground with irritable bravado.
"My lord, you were a fool at twenty," were his words.
"A thrice damned fool," came the echo.
Balthasar chuckled.
"And now, messire, a golden chain makes a Tantalus of you. Life crawls like a sluggish river. You chafe, you strain, you rebel, feed on your own heart, sin to assert your liberty. Youth slips from you; the sky narrows about your ears. Well, well, have I not read aright?"
"Speak on," quoth the man by the altar.