"If thou dost persist in thy calumny of me, thou mayest come to test
thy dismal augury," she warned.

He dropped his eyes and his mouth drooped dolorously.

"I come for comfort, and I get Nechutes and all the unpropitious
possibilities that his name suggests."

"Comfort? Thou, in trouble? Thou, the light-hearted?" she laughed.

"Nay; I am discontented, but I might as well hope to heave the skies
away with my shoulders as to rebel against mine oppression. So I came
to be petted into submission."

"Nay, dost thou hear him?" the lady cried. "And he came, because he
was sure he would get it!"

"And he will go away because the Lady Ta-meri means he shall not have
it," he exclaimed. He reached toward his coif and immediately a
panic-stricken little hand stayed him.

"Nay," she said softly. "I was but retaliating. Hast thou not plagued
me, and may I not tease thee a little in revenge? Say on."

"My--but now I bethink me, I ought not to tell thee. It savors of that
which so offends thy nice sense of gentility--labor," he said, sinking
back in his easy attitude again.

"Fie, Kenkenes," she said. "Hath some one put thy slavish love of toil