no formidable enemy save myself; but that same midnight stabber
unhorsed me long ago. I had wallowed in the mire contentedly enough
until you came.... Ah, child, child! why needed you to trouble me! for
to-night I want to be clean as you are clean, and that I may not ever
be. I am garrisoned with devils, I am the battered plaything of every
vice, and I lack the strength, and it may be, even the will, to leave
my mire. Always I have betrayed the stewardship of man and god alike
that my body might escape a momentary discomfort! And loving you as I
do, I cannot swear that in the outcome I would not betray you too, to
this same end! I cannot swear--Oh, now let Satan laugh, yet not
unpitifully, since he and I, alone, know all the reasons why I may not
swear! Hah, Madame Melicent!" cried Perion, in his great agony, "you
offer me that gift an emperor might not accept save in awed gratitude;
and I refuse it." Gently he raised her to her feet. "And now, in God's
name, go, madame, and leave the prodigal among his husks."

"You are a very brave and foolish gentleman," she said, "who chooses to
face his own achievements without any paltering. To every man, I think,
that must be bitter work; to the woman who loves him it is impossible."

Perion could not see her face, because he lay prone at the feet of
Melicent, sobbing, but without any tears, and tasting very deeply of
such grief and vain regret as, he had thought, they know in hell alone;
and even after she had gone, in silence, he lay in this same posture
for an exceedingly long while.

And after he knew not how long a while, Perion propped his chin between
his hands and, still sprawling upon the rushes, stared hard into the
little, crackling fire. He was thinking of a Perion de la Foret that
once had been. In him might have been found a fit mate for Melicent had