And they relate that while Alianora and Manuel sat cosily in the hood of
the fireplace and cracked walnuts, and in the pauses of their talking
noted how the snow was drifting by the windows, the ghost of Niafer went
restlessly about green fields beneath an ever radiant sky in the
paradise of the pagans. When the kindly great-browed warders asked her
what it was she was seeking, the troubled spirit could not tell them,
for Niafer had tasted Lethe, and had forgotten Dom Manuel. Only her love
for him had not been forgotten, because that love had become a part of
her, and so lived on as a blind longing and as a desire which did not
know its aim. And they relate also that in Suskind's low red-pillared
palace Suskind waited with an old thought for company.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]

PART TWO


THE BOOK OF SPENDING


TO

LOUIS UNTERMEYER