Part 5

"I have sometimes picked a wrinkled, twisted pear and found it honey-sweet at the heart."

Even the callous fool felt the tenderness in Perpetua's voice, the tender pity of the strong spirit for the weak, the evil, the unhappy. He shook his head less angrily than before.

"I am no such bird-of-paradise," he sighed. "My mind is a crooked knife in a crooked sheath. When I was a child in my Italian village, trimly built, children laughed at me for my ugliness, for my hump, for my peaked chin and my limp, and I learned to curse other children as I learned to speak. Every hand, every tongue was against the hunchback, yet my shame saved me. For my gibbosities tickled the taste of a travelling mountebank. He bought me of my parents, who were willing enough to part with their monster; he trained me to his trade, taught me to sing foul songs and to dance foul dances. I have grinned and whistled through evil days and ways. My wit was gray with iniquities when Hildebrand, the King's minion, saw me one day at a fair in Naples and picked me out for jester to Prince Robert."

The head of Diogenes drooped upon his breast. He had not talked, he had not thought, of the past for long enough, and the memory vexed him. Perpetua propped the sword against the wall of her dwelling and stood with linked hands for a little while in silence, looking out over the sea. Then she turned again to where the fool crouched, and spoke to him softly.

"Are all court folk like you?"

Diogenes lifted his head, and the old malignity glittered in his eyes.

"Ay, in the souls; but for the most part they have smooth bodies."

He watched the girl closely while her eyes again sought the sea and came back and met the fool's gaze.

"Is the King like you?" she questioned.

The fool unhuddled himself and leaped to his feet, snapping his fingers in fantastic imprecation.

"My soul is as the soul of a sucking babe by his wicked soul; but, as for his body, the imperious gods who mock us have given him a most exquisite outside, the case of an angel masking a devil."

He raged into silence, but his mouth still worked hideously, as if his hate were fumbling for words it could not find. The girl gave a great sigh.

"I did not know there were such men in the world," she said. The fool stared at her in amaze.

"Then you must have seen few men," he grunted.

"I have seen few men," the girl answered, sadly--"my father, who is old, and the timid country folk, and the holy brothers of the church. Of men from the valley, from the city, I have seen but two--you and one other." She paused for a moment, thoughtfully, and then went on with a swell of exultation in her voice--"and that other was not like you."

The fool drew nearer to her, eagerly, apish curiosity goading him. "Who was my fellow?" he asked of the girl, who, with averted head, seemed as one who dreams waking. Dreamily she answered:

"One dewy morning a week ago I met a hunter in these happy woods." She closed her eyes for a moment as if the memory was sweet to her and she wished to shut it away from the staring fool.

"Humph!" said Diogenes. "In the days of Robert the Good men might not hunt in these forests."

Perpetua looked at Diogenes again with bright eyes of scorn.

"King Robert was gentle with beast as with man. But this hunter did not seem cruel. Like you, he was tired; like you, he was thirsty. I showed him where a spring of sweet water bubbled."

"What was his outer seeming?" Diogenes asked. Somewhat of a warmer color touched the girl's cheeks.

"My father has told me tales of the ancient heroes. I think he was blessed with all the comeliness and goodliness of the Golden Age."

Diogenes jeered at her enthusiasm with his voice, with his eyes, with every curve and angle of his misshapen frame--protesting against praise of beauty.

"Did he pilfer your silly heart from your soft body?" he asked. Perpetua answered him mildly, heedless of the sneering speech.

"He spoke me fair. He was grave and courteous. I know he was brave and good." She moved a little away, with her hands clasped, speaking rather to herself, but indifferent to the presence of the fool. "When God wishes me to mate, God grant that I love such a man."

The frankness, the simplicity, the purity of this prayer seemed to sting Diogenes to a fierce irritation. Leering and lolling, he advanced upon the girl.

"Did he kiss you upon the mouth?" he whispered, mean insinuation lighting his face with an ignoble joy.

The girl turned upon him swiftly, and there was a sternness in her face that made the fool recoil involuntarily and wince as if at a coming blow. But there was little anger in the girl's clear speech as she condemned the unclean thing.