Niafer replied nothing, but Niafer smiled. Niafer raised one shoulder a
little, rubbing it against Manuel's broad chest, but Niafer still kept
silence. So the two young people regarded each other for a while, not
speaking, and to every appearance not valuing Miramon Lluagor and his
encompassing enchantments at a straw's worth, nor valuing anything save
each other.

"All things are changed for me," says Manuel, presently, in a hushed
voice, "and for the rest of time I live in a world wherein Niafer
differs from all other persons."

"My dearest," Niafer replied, "there is no sparkling queen nor polished
princess anywhere but the woman's heart in her would be jumping with joy
to have you looking at her twice, and I am only a servant girl!"

"But certainly," said the rasping voice of Gisèle, "Niafer is my
suitably disguised heathen waiting-woman, to whom my husband sent a
dream some while ago, with instructions to join me here, so that I might
have somebody to look after my things. So, Niafer, since you were
fetched to wait on me, do you stop pawing at that young pig-tender, and
tell me what is this I hear about your remarkable cleverness!"

Instead, it was Manuel who proudly told of the shrewd devices through
which Niafer had passed the serpents and the other terrors of sleep. And
the while that the tall boy was boasting, Miramon Lluagor smiled, and
Gisèle looked very hard at Niafer: for Miramon and his wife both knew
that the cleverness of Niafer was as far to seek as her good looks, and
that the dream which Miramon had sent had carefully instructed Niafer as
to these devices.