But Balthis, he saw now, was determined not to go on in talk about the church which Ninzian had builded in honor of Manuel the Redeemer, and which Ninzian was stocking with very holy relics. Instead, she asserted with deliberation, “Ninzian, I think it is fully as big as a man’s foot.”
“Well, be it as you like, my pet!”
“But I will not be put off in that way! Do you tread beside it in the flower-bed there, and, by comparing the print of your foot with the bird track, we shall easily see which is the larger.”
Ninzian was not so ruddy as he had been. Yet he said with dignity, and lightly enough, he hoped:
“Balthis, you are unreasonable. I do not intend to get my sandals all over mud to settle any such foolish point. The track is just the size of a man’s foot, or it is much larger than a man’s foot, or it is smaller than a man’s foot,—it is, in fine, of any size which you prefer. And we will let that be the end of it.”
“So, Ninzian, you will not tread in that new-digged earth?” said Balthis, queerly.
“Of course I will not ruin my second-best sandals for any such foolish reason!”
“You trod there yesterday in your very best sandals, Ninzian, for the reason that you were tipsy. I saw the print you made there, in broad daylight, Ninzian, when you had just come from drinking with a blessed saint himself, and were reeling all over the neat ways of my garden. Ninzian, it is a fearful thing to know that when your husband walks in mud he leaves tracks like a bird.”
Now Ninzian was truly penitent for yesterday’s over-indulgence. And Ninzian said:
“So, you have discovered this foible of mine, after all my carefulness! That is a great pity.”
Balthis replied, with the cold non-committalness of wives, “Pity or no, you will now have to tell me the truth about it.”
That task did, in point of fact, seem so appallingly unavoidable that Ninzian settled down to it, with such airiness as would have warned any wife in the world exactly how far to trust him.
“Well, my darling, you must know that when I first came into Poictesme, I came rather unwillingly. Our friend St. Holmendis, I need not tell you, was, even in the time of Dom Manuel’s incarnation in frail human flesh, setting such a very high moral tone hereabouts, and the holy man is so impetuous with his miracles when anybody differs with him on religious matters, that the prospect was not alluring. But it was necessary that my prince should have some representative here, as in all other places. So I came, from—well, from down yonder—”
“I know you came from the South, Ninzian! Everybody knows that. But that appears to me no excuse whatever for walking like a bird.”
“As if, my dearest, it could give me any pleasure to walk like a bird, or like a whole covey of birds! To the contrary, I have always found this small accomplishment in doubtful taste, it exposes one to continual comment. But very long ago those who had served my prince with especial distinction were all put upon this footing, in order that true demerit might be encouraged, and that fine sportsmanship might be preserved, and so that, also, our adversaries in the great game might be detecting us.”
Now Balthis fixed on him wide, scornful, terrible eyes. After a breathless while she said:
“Ninzian, I understand. You are an evil spirit, and you came out of hell in the appearance of a man to work wickedness in Poictesme!”
And his Balthis, as he saw with a pang of wild regret, was horribly upset and grieved to know the thing which her husband had so long hid away from her; and Ninzian began to feel rather ashamed of not having trusted her with this secret, now it was discovered. At all events, he would try what being reasonable might do.
“Darling,” said he, with patient rationality, “no sensible wife will ever pry into what her husband may have been or done before she married him. Her concern is merely with his misdemeanors after that ceremony; and, I think, you have had no heavy reason to complain. Nobody can for one moment assert that in Poictesme I have not led an appallingly upright and immaculate existence.”
She said, indignantly: “You had fear of Holmendis! You came all this long way to do your devil work, and then had not the pluck to face him!”
Ninzian found this just near enough the truth to be irritating. So he spoke now with airy condescension.
“Precious, it is true the lean man can work miracles, but then, without desiring to appear boastful, I must tell you that I have mastery of a more venerable and blacker magic. Oh, I assure you, he could not have exorcised or excommunicated or tried any other of his sacerdotal trick-work upon me without sweating for it! Still, it seemed better to avoid such painful scenes: for when one has trouble with these saints the supporters of both sides are apt to intervene; the skies are blackened and the earth shakes, and whirlwinds and meteors and thunderbolts and seraphim upset things generally: and it all seems rather boisterous and old-fashioned. So it really did appear more sensible, and in better taste, to respect, at all events during his lifetime, the well-meaning creature’s religious convictions—in which you share, I know, my pet,—and, well!” said Ninzian, with a shrug, “to temporize! to keep matters comfortable all around, you understand, my darling, by evincing a suitable interest in church work and in whatever else appeared expected of the reputable in my surroundings.”
But Balthis was not to be soothed. “Ninzian, this is a terrible thing for me to be learning! There was never a husband who better knew his place, and the only baby you ever upset me with is at the pawnbroker’s, and Holy Church has not ever had a more loyal servitor—”
“No,” Ninzian said, quietly.
“—But you have been a hideous-demon in deep hell, and the man that I have loved is a false seeming, and the moment St. Holmendis ascends to bliss you mean to go on with your foul iniquities. That is foolish of you, because of course I would never permit it. But, even so—! Oh, Ninzian, my faith and my happiness are buried now in the one grave, now that all ends between us!”
Ninzian asked, still very quietly: “And do you think I will leave you, my Balthis, because of some disarranged fresh earth? Could any handful of dirt have parted us when because of my great love for you I fought the seven knights at Evre—”
“What chance had the poor fellows against a devil!”
“It is the principle of the thing, my darling,—as well as the mathematics. Also, as I was going on to observe, you would never have been flinging mud in my face when for your sake I overthrew Duke Oribert and his deplorable custom of the cat and the serpent, and cast the Spotted Dun of Lorcha down from a high hill.”
She answered without pity: “You will be lucky to get out of this mud with a whole skin. For it is on this evening of the month that St. Holmendis hears my confession, and I must confess everything, and you know as well as I do of his devastating miracles.”
Ninzian, having thus failed in his appeal to the better qualities of his wife, forthwith returned to soliciting her powers of reason.
“Balthis, my sweet, now, after all, what complaint have you against me? You cannot help feeling that the no doubt ill-advised rebellion in which I was concerned in youth, unarithmeticable aeons before this Earth was thought of, took place quite long enough ago to be forgotten. Besides, you know by experience that I am only too easily guided by others, that I have never learned, as you so eloquently phrase it, to have any backbone. And I do not really see, either, how you can want to punish me to-day for iniquities which, you grant, I have not ever committed, but—so you assume, without any warrant known to me,—have just vaguely thought of committing by and by, and it may be, not for years to come,—my adorable pouting darling,—because this stringy Holmendis seems tough as whit-leather—”