The Line of Love | Page 9

for yourself.
Well, Mother, many things fall out queerly in this world, but with age
we learn to accept what happens without flustering too much over it.
What are we to do with this resurrected old lover of mine?"
It was horrible to Florian to see how prosaically these women dealt
with his unusual misadventure. Here was a miracle occurring virtually
before their eyes, and these women accepted it with maddening
tranquillity as an affair for which they were not responsible. Florian
began to reflect that elderly persons were always more or less
unsympathetic and inadequate.
"First of all," says Dame Melicent, "I would give him some breakfast.
He must be hungry after all these years. And you could put him in
Adhelmar's room--"
"But," Florian said wildly, to Dame Adelaide, "you have committed the
crime of bigamy, and you are, after all, my wife!"
She replied, herself not untroubled: "Yes, but, Mother, both the cook
and the butler are somewhere in the bushes yonder, up to some
nonsense that I prefer to know nothing about. You know how servants
are, particularly on holidays. I could scramble him some eggs, though,
with a rasher. And Adhelmar's room it had better be, I suppose, though
I had meant to have it turned out. But as for bigamy and being your
wife," she concluded more cheerfully, "it seems to me the least said the
soonest mended. It is to nobody's interest to rake up those foolish
bygones, so far as I can see."
"Adelaide, you profane equally love, which is divine, and marriage,
which is a holy sacrament."
"Florian, do you really love Adelaide de Nointel?" asked this terrible
woman. "And now that I am free to listen to your proposals, do you
wish to marry me?"
"Well, no," said Florian: "for, as I have just said; you are no longer the

same person."
"Why, then, you see for yourself. So do you quit talking nonsense
about immortality and sacraments."
"But, still," cried Florian, "love is immortal. Yes, I repeat to you,
precisely as I told Tiburce, love is immortal."
Then says Dame Melicent, nodding her shriveled old head: "When I
was young, and was served by nimbler senses and desires, and was
housed in brightly colored flesh, there were a host of men to love me.
Minstrels yet tell of the men that loved me, and of how many tall men
were slain because of their love for me, and of how in the end it was
Perion who won me. For the noblest and the most faithful of all my
lovers was Perion of the Forest, and through tempestuous years he
sought me with a love that conquered time and chance: and so he won
me. Thereafter he made me a fair husband, as husbands go. But I might
not stay the girl he had loved, nor might he remain the lad that Melicent
had dreamed of, with dreams be-drugging the long years in which
Demetrios held Melicent a prisoner, and youth went away from her. No,
Perion and I could not do that, any more than might two drops of water
there retain their place in the stream's flowing. So Perion and I grew old
together, friendly enough; and our senses and desires began to serve us
more drowsily, so that we did not greatly mind the falling away of
youth, nor greatly mind to note what shriveled hands now moved
before us, performing common tasks; and we were content enough. But
of the high passion that had wedded us there was no trace, and of little
senseless human bickerings there were a great many. For one
thing"--and the old lady's voice was changed--"for one thing, he was
foolishly particular about what he would eat and what he would not eat,
and that upset my housekeeping, and I had never any patience with
such nonsense."
"Well, none the less," said Florian, "it is not quite nice of you to
acknowledge it."
Then said Dame Adelaide: "That is a true word, Mother. All men get
finicky about their food, and think they are the only persons to be

considered, and there is no end to it if once you begin to humor them.
So there has to be a stand made. Well, and indeed my poor Ralph, too,
was all for kissing and pretty talk at first, and I accepted it willingly
enough. You know how girls are. They like to be made much of, and it
is perfectly natural. But that leads to children. And when the children
began to come, I had not much time to bother with him: and Ralph had
his farming and his warfaring to keep him busy. A man with a growing
family cannot afford to neglect his affairs. And certainly, being no fool,
he began