always the blessed "free days," when he could climb any marble steps,
and enter any great portal without paying an entrance fee. Once inside,
there were plenty of plainly and poorly dressed people to be seen, but
there were not often boys as young as himself who were not attended by
older companions. Quiet and orderly as he was, he often found himself
stared at. The game he had created for himself was as simple as it was
absorbing. It was to try how much he could remember and clearly describe
to his father when they sat together at night and talked of what he had
seen. These night talks filled his happiest hours. He never felt lonely
then, and when his father sat and watched him with a certain curious
and deep attention in his dark, reflective eyes, the boy was utterly
comforted and content. Sometimes he brought back rough and crude
sketches of objects he wished to ask questions about, and Loristan could
always relate to him the full, rich story of the thing he wanted to
know. They were stories made so splendid and full of color in the
telling that Marco could not forget them.




III

THE LEGEND OF THE LOST PRINCE


As he walked through the streets, he was thinking of one of these
stories. It was one he had heard first when he was very young, and it
had so seized upon his imagination that he had asked often for it.
It was, indeed, a part of the long-past history of Samavia, and he had
loved it for that reason. Lazarus had often told it to him, sometimes