Chapter XIX: Paulos Does Some Thought-Reading

Dinner that night was a lengthy affair. There were some dozen lesser chiefs, as well as various officials and their wives, good-looking women for the most part.

I had the luck to find myself by Aryenis, while Ziné was sandwiched between Wrexham and Forsyth. On my other hand was a youngish man named Andros, broad of shoulder and square of chin, very soldierly looking, and a cultured talker. He had many questions to ask about our country, our weapons, and so on. Later he transferred his attention to Wrexham, inquiring about the morning’s fight, and I got a chance of asking Aryenis who the different people were.

“Has your uncle no children?” I asked, after she had pointed out the notabilities.

“No; none. It is a great sorrow to him to have no son to assist him in ruling the country. The young chief sitting on your right now helps him. He is a distant cousin of ours, and a great friend of mine.”

I regarded my neighbour with more interest after that, for I wondered if he was Aryenis’s “might be” fairy prince. He was good-looking enough, anyway, with his manly features, light brown hair, and keen blue eyes.

Then, seeing that he was busy trying to follow Wrexham’s rather halting Greek, she went on more boldly:

“He is really _very_ nice, you know. Don’t you think he looks it?”

“Yes, he does certainly. Is he a soldier, too?”

“Yes; but these last two years he’s been helping my uncle instead of living in one of the border forts, which is where most of the soldiers begin. My father says it’s good for them, as they learn their work and keep out of mischief, as he calls it. I think Ziné and I and our friends are supposed to be the mischief!”

“It is possible to imagine such a thing,” said I, looking down the table to where Ziné was smiling at some remark of Forsyth’s. He was evidently using his Greek to best advantage, and I felt sorry for John, stammering military commonplaces to Andros. I don’t know why I should have felt sorry, because Wrexham had never appeared to hanker much after feminine society during the years I had known him. But then they were generally years where the said society was limited to Flemish billet ladies or upon occasion to shrill-tongued Easterns with grievances. Still, after all, he was the original finder of Ziné’s picture and the cause of our meeting the lady.

After dinner we sat in the great hall and some of the guests sang to us, rather pleasing music, very Western in type. Two of the women accompanied them on small stringed instruments not unlike guitars. The airs were for the most part familiar to the audience, judging by the way they took up the refrains. Of course, we could not follow the words, which were all in Sakae, but one that Andros sang was obviously some kind of fighting song.

When the applause had died away, he went up to Aryenis and asked her to sing. She seemed doubtful either about singing or else as to what song she should choose, for they talked together quite a time. Eventually she got up and sang to his accompaniment--he was obviously a master of the instrument, which he took from one of the ladies.

Aryenis’s voice--a full soprano--was worth going a long way to listen to, and she knew how to use it, for she filled the whole great hall, while the rustle and buzz of conversation died away and a still silence settled as she began.

I have heard her sing this particular song often since, and, as the words pleased me when I learnt something of the language, I used to sing it myself after the manner of the unmusical male--namely, in my bath. I made a rough verse translation of it, which gives the meaning pretty accurately:

A SONG OF LIFE

I believe in life and in all it holds
Of beauty and joy and love,
In the flowers that dream in my garden gay,
And the glittering snows above.
In the sweet fresh breath of dawn in spring--
Rose hills in the sunset light--
In the moon peeping out from her spangled veil,
In the warm scented summer night.

In play I believe, in sport and game,
In the call of the swift foot pack;
In the arrow’s flight and the sword-blade’s kiss,
In the hoofs drumming down the track.
In the stress of work that makes our world,
In the days of the tautened trace;
In the task that we finish clean and fair,
With a laugh in Death’s dark face.

I believe in the friendships held so dear,
Children’s laughter and men’s grave smiles,
In the pleasures shared and the sorrows halved,
In the thoughts that bridge the miles.
But love is the pivot that swings the whole,
The molten heart of the glow,
Just a man and a woman--all in all--
_That’s_ God’s heaven for us below.

The music was pregnant with life, and Aryenis sang it as if she meant every word of it. When she finished, there was a low hum of applause--the real thing.

She came over and sat down by Milos and me.

“Did you like the tune of that?” she asked.

“Very much, Aryenis.”

“I’m glad. It’s rather a nice thing that Paulos composed. I’ll write you out the words in Greek one day. It’s all about life and what life ought to be like. It’s a wonderful thing to have been written by a cripple. The music is Andros’s. He’s clever, isn’t he?”

“Yes. Is he as good at other things, too?”

“I think there’s nothing Andros can’t do,” said Milos. “He’s one of the best riders I know; quite the finest shot with a bow in the whole clan, and last year he carried off the prize for the best man at arms in our weapon show. He’s a good leader in war, and popular with everybody under him. A good musician, and--though he’s shy about it--somewhat of a poet.”

“You’re fortunate in having a man like that under you,” said I. “Aryenis was telling me that he helps you a good deal.”

“Yes. He’s getting more and more my right-hand man. Under Kyrlos and myself most of the preparations for this war have been made by him. He’s got a good head on his shoulders, which does not always go with the more showy qualities.”

Then he turned to Aryenis.

“Will you finish the evening for us with that little song of Andros’s? I have not heard it for quite a long time, and you used to sing it a lot.”

“If you like, uncle mine. If Andros will play it for me, that is.”

Milos called to Andros, asking him to play again, and Aryenis sang a little short ballad with a very haunting refrain. If I could write verse as Andros does, I wouldn’t be shy about it. I’d put it into print straight away and let the world see it. But still they have no press in Sakaeland, and if you have some one like Aryenis to sing your poems, then a press is worse than superfluous.

Shortly after that the guests began to leave, and we were not sorry, especially Stephnos and Wrexham, who were anxious for bed after a before-dawn start, forty miles in the saddle, and a fight.

Forsyth raved about Ziné without ceasing while he was undressing--we had put him into the second room. I don’t know how many different girls she reminded him of. Eventually we threw him out of our room, and left him to rave by himself. In the morning he was singing as he dressed. I remembered that from the time in Calcutta when we were fitting out--a bad sign--and said that he was going riding with the girls, as everybody else was busy with preparations for the council.

Wrexham and I announced our intention of going to the meeting, and so Forsyth went off with the two girls. They told us they were going to meet Milos’s wife, who would be arriving about midday. I watched them ride out of the gate, Forsyth very smart for the occasion, for, if there is one thing under the sun Forsyth prefers to one pretty girl, it’s two. Under the moon, however, he seems to find one sufficient. The council meeting was at ten-thirty, and shortly before that Stephnos fetched us.

The council, which met in a big room in the palace, consisted of some thirty men, heads of clan sections, and officials of different kinds. Wrexham pointed out to me the old chief who had settled with the prisoners after the raid the day before. He must have been tough for his years to have ridden in all that way and still look fresh as paint with his youthful colouring under his snow-white locks. But the Sakae are a hard crowd, and age slowly. He bowed to Wrexham as Stephnos gave us seats on carved benches ranged round three sides of the room. At the fourth was a raised dais, presently occupied by Kyrlos and his brother and two older men. On their right was seated an old man in long black robes armed with writing materials, whose business it seemed to be to take down important points during the meeting.

The chiefs around us were of varying ages, from men like Wrexham’s friend to youths no older than Stephnos. Most of them were clad in ordinary everyday garments, the pleated smock-like tunics and cross-gartered leg-wear, though others were in mail. All, however, whether in mail or not, wore the short straight Sakae sword. The Sakae men are not given to much in the way of personal adornment, though here and there I sometimes notice men wearing silver bracelets, but these are the exception rather than the rule. The most common male ornament is big silver signet rings. Illiteracy among the upper classes is uncommon, but in spite of that the seal is considered as good, if not even better, than a signature. The seal engravers must be a remarkably honest folk. We were, of course, unable to follow either the opening speech which Kyrlos made or the ones that followed; but, from the hurried translations that Stephnos gave us, it appeared that Kyrlos had given a résumé of the Shaman aims, an account of their misdeeds, and emphasized the necessity of taking quick action before the Blue Sakae were overrun even as the Red and Green clans had been. Milos seconded him, and then others rose and spoke in turn.

It was clear that feeling was pretty high, judging from the guttural exclamations which greeted various passages. At last Wrexham’s old chief got up and made what seemed to be a very telling speech. Apparently he was describing the raid of the day before. It was many years since there had been a raid on such a scale with a whole village practically wiped out, and the audience was obviously moved by the story.

Finally, Kyrlos spoke again, and Stephnos told us he was asking for the chiefs’ opinions as to whether they were in favour of immediate war or not. There was a brief silence when he had done, and then Wrexham’s chief drew his short sword and held it out point downward, and in another moment every blade in the room was bare. I could see a look of relief pass over Kyrlos’s face as he drew his own weapon, and then understood that he had carried his council with him, and the war was settled.

The rest of the meeting was a discussion as to the procedure, and finally it broke up with the understanding that on that day four weeks all the fighting men of the whole clan would be assembled at Aornos and march under Kyrlos’s own command into the Shaman country. Milos would remain at Miletis to carry on the affairs at home, and superintend the defence of the northern border if there were any attempts from the Red Sakae side.

Forsyth and the two girls came back at midday escorting Milos’s wife Annais, a very stately-looking middle-aged woman. Her thick brown hair was streaked with grey, but she had kept a girl’s complexion, and her chiselled features and young blue eyes, together with her beautiful figure and elastic walk, made it hard to believe that she was, indeed, as Aryenis told me, well on the wrong side of forty. She spoke to me very graciously, thanking me for helping her niece.

“We felt as if she had been given back to us from the dead when we got my brother-in-law’s letter. I thank God every day that she found some brave good men to help her in her danger. I hope your face is nearly healed now, Sir Harilek?”

“The bandage comes off to-morrow, lady,” said I, thanking her for her kind words.

Then Andros came up and kissed her on both cheeks, calling her “mother.” I guessed then that, as indeed I found later, he was looked upon by Milos and Annais as a son, and had it been possible to dislike him I should have hated him thoroughly. But one could not dislike such a typical _preux chevalier_ as Andros, courteous in speech, thoughtful in deed and manner, and as unselfishly brave as any soldier I have ever met, though six years’ war has given me the acquaintance of many brave and unselfish men, such as Wrexham, for instance.

Still, I did wish most violently that he was other than he was, or else that he would produce a wife. I wished it the more ardently all the fortnight following the council when he rode daily with Aryenis, except when his duties kept him too busy.

It is true that I saw a lot of her, because he was engaged either with Kyrlos or else with other officers nearly the whole day. But he managed to find time to ride with Aryenis either morning or evening, and of course played her accompaniments after the evening meal, when we nearly always had music. Forsyth was made to produce his banjoline, and sat both metaphorically and literally at the feet of Ziné, learning Sakae tunes and teaching her bits and snatches of _revues_.

Having no such parlour tricks I was perforce driven to conversation with the others, talking to Annais, or discussing European methods of war with Milos. Kyrlos had taken a great liking to Wrexham, and the two talked together nearly the whole time most evenings, chiefly shop about fortifications and methods of attack. The Shamans’ fortress was very strong, and, even after dealing with their troops in the field, there was every possibility of a long and arduous siege before us. I think Kyrlos hoped that Wrexham, with his knowledge of strange devices of war, might produce some wonderful invention which would help him to finish off the enemy quickly. Considering how long the Sakae had been isolated, the breadth of mind possessed by the educated classes was amazing. One would have expected the most narrow-minded conservatism and prejudice, whereas, on the contrary, we found them exceptionally keen to take up any new idea.

I remember Kyrlos’s disappointment when Wrexham had to explain that it was beyond his power to make rifles with the plant and labour available. They spent many hours together in Kyrlos’s armouries, Stephnos following Wrexham like a shadow. About the fourth day these visits to the armoury began to grow longer, and after that we saw less and less of the pair each day. Firoz, too, was generally absent, and I saw Payindah going about much with Temra. Evidently Wrexham was evolving something, but somehow it never occurred to me to ask details, and Forsyth was far too busy with Ziné to consider anything else. As often as not the two of them went off riding with Aryenis and Andros, but I somehow think that Forsyth, who squired Ziné, was not over-careful about keeping the sections closed up too much, as the cavalry term is. I met them coming back one day, and there were a good many horse-lengths between the two sections.

Still, as I say, I did see a good deal of Aryenis--when Andros was at work. And the more I saw, the more I wanted to see, and the less could I contemplate the idea of six months’ march back to settle in civilization with Aryenis in Sakaeland. On the other hand, apart from this most disturbing appearance of Andros, a factor which I judged outweighed most others, I could not conceive Aryenis in any other surroundings than below the snows of Saghar Mor among her pine forests and orchards and rose gardens. She seemed like the spirit of her beautiful land incarnate. There was snow and sunshine, blue skies, and cloud-dappled ones, the filmy mist of rain and the rippling laughter of the mountain streams, the light joyousness of the spring blossoms, and all the golden promise of late summer fruit. All these precious things were part and parcel of Aryenis’s self, and now one and now another predominated. There was about her, as her song had it, the fresh breath of dawn. Was there also the sequel of the warm summer night? Unless I was utterly and hopelessly mistaken, that was there, temporarily submerged, and only waiting the touch of a kindred hand to call it up in all its deep star-spangled loveliness. Was Andros the fairy prince the touch of whose magic kiss would wake all the greater depths hidden beneath the iridescent rose mist of Aryenis’s joyous girlhood, calling up those far sweeter

“Silver lights and darks undreamed of,
Where I hush and bless myself with silence”?

The more I watched, the less could I doubt it.

One morning, when every one else was occupied--Wrexham and Stephnos, hidden in the mysterious armoury along with old wrinkled-eyed smiths, amid clouds of fumes splashed with the vivid sparks of molten metal, and a deafening clangour of hammer and anvil; the two girls, with Andros and Forsyth in attendance, out riding; Kyrlos and his brother busy with affairs of State, and Annais engaged with mysterious female rites concerning linens and silks and other household business--I bethought me of Paulos.

A good horse would see me there long before the midday meal, and a quiet afternoon might soothe my sand-papered soul somewhat. We would talk of old books or of history, and, in answering his questions about the great world, which he knew only from writings centuries old, I would forget those far older, but eternally new matters which clamoured so incessantly for notice.

So I called Payindah, and told him to get horses--Kyrlos had placed the best of his stable at our disposal--and a little later, with the Punjabi, very smart in the new outfit of mail and leather which Kyrlos with the most nicely worded thanks had formally presented to him and Firoz, I was cantering down the Aornos road.

Payindah’s steel cap winked in the sunshine, and as he looked my way I noticed again the chiselled silver plate in front, which I knew bore Aryenis’s name. She had had that done herself for the two men, so that all who met them might know to what they owed their arms. “Some little memory of a brave deed well done,” she had said to me as she gave Payindah his cap after Kyrlos had handed them the new mail jerkins.

But my cap was bare of crest or favour.

“This is a land as good as Farance, sahib,” said Payindah, looking out over the countryside with its rich soil, its thick masses of trees, and the populous little villages all surrounded by fruit orchards. “It is richer than even the canal districts of the Punjab. And a good folk in it, like unto those of Farance. Brave men and masterful women, and children as stout as those of my own land. One could settle well in such a country.” He looked at me closely.

“And what would you do here?” said I. “You would be in a strange land, having neither kith nor kin and no fields of your own? The people, too, are of other faith than yours, and their manners are strange. Nor even is there a mosque.”

“But what is this talk of strange land and strange ways to an Awan who has soldiered for the Sirkar[6] over half the world? Were not the people of Farance of other faith, and there were no mosques in the country. But were we Punjabis the less at home? Last night I ate with Temra, and it was like to the billets in Farance. And his women, his wife and her sister, ate with us after the manner of those we saw in Europe.”

“So Temra’s wife has a sister, has she? Is she married?”

“No, though she is of full marriageable age--over-aged, we should say, in the Punjab.”

“Perchance about to be married?”

“Not so. I asked Temra on the matter.”

This sounded interesting, but, considering Payindah had been less than three weeks in the country, I wondered how he had contrived to get to the stage of conversation. I expect it was pretty monosyllabic. I followed up the train.

“I suppose you were thinking of seeking land here, then, and not coming back with us to the Punjab.”

“But the sahibs will not go back to the Punjab. You will stay here. Forsyth Sahib will not desire to leave the Lady Ziné, nor will the Shahzadi’s father wish to part with Wrexham Sahib, who is teaching his smiths many things. You will most certainly stay here as the sahibs settled in Hind in the days of the emperors, receiving land and great honours.”

“You seem very certain about it all, but, even if the Shahzadi’s father gets Wrexham Sahib to stop here, and Forsyth Sahib is not desirous of leaving the Lady Ziné, where do you and I come in?”

Payindah looked at me again unabashed.

“Temra and his folk took me to a wedding yesterday--one of the soldiers--and it was clear that the woman had as much voice as the man, if not more. And when it was over, we rode to the house, and upon the step was the bride’s brother armed. And he spoke to the bride as though asking her whether she desired the man or not, and only when she had indicated that she would have him did he lower his sword and allow the bridegroom to enter. It is clear that these folk are as those of the sahibs’ country, for the women speak sometimes as equals to the men but more often as superiors. So you will also remain here, for the Shahzadi will not let you go.”

“You’re a fool, Payindah. You talk about what you don’t understand at all. And, anyhow, the Shahzadi rides nearly every day with Lord Andros.”

“Then it is clear that she does not mean to marry him, for this also I saw at Béthune, where there were two French soldiers who came on leave, friends of the daughter of the house you were billeted in. And one she walked with frequently. And upon the other, with whom I talked sometimes, she looked not at all with favour. At least so it seemed. But later on, when we passed that way, he was there on leave again, and they were married.”

“That may be, but it is not so here. Anyway, it does not matter, because presently I shall be going back to England, even if you all stop here; though what you will live on I don’t know.”

“Land,” said Payindah decisively. “There is always land to get after battle, as my folk know, seeing all ours has been given us for wars. When the Shahzadi’s father has destroyed the enemy, he will give land to his army after the manner of kings when they are victorious. So that if perchance we desire it we shall get it, for we are the people who will settle the war, since we alone have rifles.”

He patted his .303 as I can imagine away back in the dim past his ancestors, kin, perhaps, of these same Sakae and their like--the white races who swept out over Europe till the Atlantic checked them for a few hundred years--patted their swords as they beheld the rich Punjab spread out below the gaunt frontier hills, knowing that always land lies at the grasp of him that can wield his weapons.

“And you would take land and settle here if there were opportunity?” I asked.

“May be. Never before have I desired to settle down like my folk at home. Perhaps had there been children, ’twould have been otherwise. But the Giver sent none, and then took away her who might have been their mother. So I desired even less than before to stay settled, and as I had done before sought new faces, strange places, feeling called to wander. But now somehow I think that I will cease roaming, and stay under my own roof on my own land. Yet I do not desire to return to the Punjab.”

“Well, anyway, it’s a long way off, and there is a war first. After that we shall see what we shall see. Your Book says that God has bound the fate of every man about his neck. Doubtless He has fixed ours, too, and sooner or later we shall know what it is.”

“Most surely He has. You and I were at the _tangi_ when the Shahzadi was about to be killed, so she escaped. The Shahzadi knew of the only way up the cliffs, so that we are now in this country. Yes, undoubtedly we shall know presently what Khuda has bound about our necks.”

We were riding up the lane toward Paulos’s house as he spoke, and a little later we entered the trim garden. The servants ran out to take the horses, and, walking through the great hall, I found Paulos sitting in the sun in the back verandah.

He greeted me very kindly, and was, I think, pleased to see me. We breakfasted out in the verandah, and spent a quiet afternoon talking of many things in which he was interested, especially of all the countries he knew of from his readings. He showed me one or two old manuscripts, things which would have been priceless to collectors at home.

Luckily I had kept up my readings of the classics and studied the geography of the old world, and so was able to talk with some show of knowledge. Later in the afternoon we put away the past, and, turning to the present, talked of the situation in Sakaeland, of its peoples, and then inevitably passed to personalities, speaking of the different people I had met. Paulos is always tact itself, but somehow I could not help feeling that he was trying to read my thoughts when the conversation turned to Aryenis. I did not turn it there--at least I don’t remember doing so--but somehow she crept in. She is hard to keep out of anything once you have met her. And once she had entered--unbidden--Andros also came up.

“I have not seen Andros for many a day,” said Paulos, “though he used to be a frequent visitor. He and Aryenis are old friends, and when she was staying with me in the spring he often rode over here.”

“Friends are they?” said I.

“Why do you ask in that tone?” said Paulos, looking at me.

“Well, I have thought sometimes that they were more than friends or fast becoming so. He is one with whom any woman might desire more than friendship.”

Despite the fact that I knew Paulos so slightly, there was something about the old man that called for confidence, that sort of sympathy, of community of understanding, that a character like his calls out at the very first meeting.

“Yes; you are right. There are few women that would not be only too ready to give him much more than friendship should he seek it. And yet he is always very heart-whole or seems to be so. But, with you, I have sometimes thought that his heart is not so secure where Aryenis is concerned.”

“And hers?”

“It would take a far cleverer man than I to tell the state of a woman’s heart, more particularly when the heart belongs to such a one as Aryenis. Frankly, I know not. This I do know, that Milos and his wife very much wish that she and Andros should make a match of it. Kyrlos also would not be ill-pleased, though, provided the man was a good one, he would welcome any one Aryenis chose, since he desires nothing but her most complete happiness.”

“And you think--?”

“I think that, of all those I know, Andros is perhaps the one I would be most pleased to give my daughter to, if I had one. But, as to whether he is the one for Aryenis, I cannot make up my mind. Both are such outstandingly good representatives of their sex that I am not sure whether they would be best matched. Light calls to dark and like to unlike all through nature as I see it, and sometimes I think that these two are in many ways too alike for perfect mating. The greatest happiness comes more often from harmonious dissimilarity than from absolute agreement.”

“Yes. I have noticed that, too. These two are not unlike in many ways.”

We were both silent a little. I was looking over the trees at the great snow-peaks stabbing the cloud-flecked blue sky. Presently the white snow would turn rose-pink at the kiss of the setting sun. Some day, too, some one’s kisses would wake Aryenis and send the blood mantling to her white skin. Her words came back from the firelit hall at Aornos--“I think he did once, though I’m not sure--” I clenched my hand on the carved arm of my chair, and then was aware that Paulos was studying my face, and so came back out of my thoughts.

“Aryenis would never leave this country of her birth,” he said. “She loves every tree and every flower, every hill and every stream, here. Sometimes I think she is the vital essence of it.”

I jumped nearly out of my chair at his words, and I’m sure he saw it.

“Of that I am certain,” he went on. “Whoever marries her will have to live in our country.”

“You mean she would not marry into one of the other clans,” said I, not meaning that at all.

“Yes; perhaps I meant that, and also other things as well.”

“Are you a magician, Paulos?”

“Harilek,” said he, very gently, laying his hand on my knee, “if reading thoughts be magic, perhaps I am a magician. Your thoughts are very transparent to an old man like me, one who makes it his hobby to understand his fellows. I would sometimes that I could read Aryenis’s thoughts as easily as some other folk’s.”

“Then, since you can read my thoughts, you may be able to read that home to me would be wherever Aryenis is.”

“That, lad, I read the first time you came here. I know nothing of you, save that you saved her at the risk of your own life. But I can see clearly that you are of our own class, and, since I have long judged men, I know that your speech is true.”

“And suppose, Paulos, that such a one as I--a stranger--were to make a bid for Aryenis’s favour, and suppose by some miracle I got it, what, then?”

He smiled.

“You do not know our people well yet. Even in our oldest books you can read that our women marry none but those they choose. Suppose, as you say, such a one as you were to do what you have said, and let us imagine that Aryenis were willing, then none would say you nay. Also, but for you Aryenis would not be here at all now.”

I rose to my feet.

“Thank you, Paulos. I came here to-day because I felt that I could talk to you straightly if so inclined. But it seems that you knew my mind before ever I opened my mouth. In a week we ride past here to the war, and I will come and see you again. I must be going now, for it gets late, and it is some way to Miletis.”

“I shall look forward to seeing you whenever you come, lad. I like to see my old mail in use again, and I confess to a liking for him who wears it. I shall look to hear more news of Aryenis and of Andros. But one thing I would have you remember.”

“And what is that?”

“When Aryenis was much younger I told her that my mail was waiting for her husband. That was many years ago, and, girl-like, she replied very hotly that she would never marry any one at all, and was going to look after Kyrlos and me when we were old.”

He paused and looked at me, but I was silent, and presently he went on again:

“Have you ever known Aryenis forget anything in the time you have known her?”

“No,” said I truthfully. “She seems to have the most wonderful memory.”

“Well, then, remember this while you ride home. The day after you brought her back to her father, she wrote to me saying that she would reach Aornos shortly, and bring you to see me. And in that letter she reminded me that I had often told her that all I had was hers, which is true. Then she went on to say that she desired me to give you my old mail _as a thank offering_. She was careful to emphasize the object of the gift lest I might think there was any other reason for it. It is always well to note carefully anything that a woman emphasizes.”

“Why so, Paulos?”

“Because you will often find that they mean something entirely different, and later on the knowledge may be valuable. But I hear the horses. I’m sorry I cannot read Aryenis’s thoughts for you. But I have told you some things which may help you to read them yourself if ever you should like to take up magic.”

I had a lot of things to ponder as I rode home, but somehow I did not feel so sand-papery inside as I had been. Paulos is a most soothing person.