ever for one moment thinking I was.” 54 “Then, too,” the ill-mannered wretch had gone on, meditatively, “you have not much intelligence. That is very well for the present, because intelligence in youth, for some reason or another, is bad for the hair and muddies the complexion. Yet an aging woman who is stupid, such as Madame Niafer or such as another woman whom I remember, is also quite unendurable.” “But what,” she asked him, rationally, “have I to do with stupid old women? I am Morvyth, I am Queen of the Isles of Wonder. I have the secrets which control all wealth and—if I should ever take a fancy to such things,—all wisdom too. There is no beauty like my beauty, nor any power like my power—” “I know, I know!” he returned,—“and for the present I of course adore you. But nevertheless, did I fall in with your very dreadful suggestion, and permit you to place me, quite publicly, at your dear side, upon the terraced throne of Inis Dahut,—why, then, within a terribly brief while, I would not mind your being stupid, I would not actually notice your dilapidated looks, I would accept all your shortcomings complacently. And I would be contented enough with you, who, once, were the despair and joy of my living. No, Morvyth, 55no, my child! I, who was once a poet of sorts, could not again endure to live in contentment with a stupid and querulous woman who was unattractive to look at. And, very certainly, within two-score of years—” 55 But a queenly gesture had put a check to such wild talk, and Morvyth too had arisen, saying: “Your arithmetic becomes tiresome. One can afford to honor truisms in their proper place, and about suitable persons: but there is, and always must be, a limit to the scope of such trite philosophy. Your audience is over, Messire Gonfal. And it is your last audience, because I consider you quite unutterably a beast.” He kissed the imperious little hand which dismissed him. “You at all events, my dear,” he stated, “are quite unutterably human.” 56 11.Economics of Morvyth ══════════════════════════════════════════════════
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