“I see,” she answered severely.  “Am I no longer worthy the robe of festivity?”

“Ah, Ta-meri, thou dost wrong me,” he said.  “Chide me, but impugn me not.  Nay, I am on my way to Tape.  I was summoned hurriedly and am already dismissed upon mine errand, but I could not use myself so ill as to postpone my visit for eighteen days.”

She jeered at him prettily.

“To hear thee one would think thou hadst been coming as often as Nechutes.”

“How often does Nechutes come?”

“Every day.”

“Of late?” he asked, with a laugh in his eyes.

“Nay,” she answered sulkily.  “Not since the day—­that day!”

Kenkenes was silent for a moment.  Then he put his elbow on the arm of her chair and leaned his head against his hand.  The attitude brought him close to her.

“All these days,” he said at length, “he has been unhappy among the happy and the unhappiest among the sad.  He has summoned the shuddering Pantheon, to hear him vow eternal unfealty to thee, Ta-meri—­and lo! while they listened he begged their most potent charm to hold thee to him still.  Poor Nechutes!”

“Thou dost treat it lightly,” she reproached him, her eyes veiled, “but it is of serious import to—­to Nechutes.”

“Nay, I shall hold my tongue.  I efface myself and intercede for him, and thou dost call it exulting.  And when I am fallen from thy favor there will be none to plead my cause, none to hide her misty eyes with contrite lashes.”

“Mine eyes are not misty,” she retorted.

“Thou hast said,” he admitted, in apology.  “It was not a happy term.  I meant bejeweled with repentant dew.”

She shook her little finger at him.

“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 under ban?  Does that oppress thee?” He reproved her with a pat on the nearest hand.