"Sweetheart, I love you very much, but my love does not blind me to the
fact that, no matter, what your talents at sorcery, you are in everyday
matters a hopelessly unpractical person. Do you leave this affair to me,
and I will manage it with every regard to appearances."

"Ah, and does one have to preserve appearances even in such matters as
parricide?"

"But certainly it looks much better for Father to be supposed to die of
indigestion. People would be suspecting all sorts of evil of the poor
dear if it were known that his own daughter could not put up with him.
In any event, sweetheart, I am resolved that, since very luckily Father
has no sons, you shall be King of Arles before this new year is out."

"No, I am Manuel: and it means more to me to be Manuel than to be King
of Arles, and Count of Provence, and seneschal of Aix and Brignoles and
Grasse and Massilia and Draguignan and so on."

"Oh, you are breaking my heart with this neglect of your true interests!
And it is all the doing of these three vile images, which you value more
than the old throne of Boson and Rothbold, and oceans more than you do
me!"

"Come, I did not say that."

"Yes, and you think, too, a deal more about that dead heathen servant
girl than you do about me, who am a princess and the heir to a kingdom."

Manuel looked at Alianora for a considerable while, before speaking. "My
dear, you are, as I have always told you, an unusually fine looking and