"Well, yes, esta-saiyett-er-that's to say, if it's no trouble," faltered Maia.

"I'll do it for you, if you like," said the Queen, taking a heavy, carved comb which one of the little boys, without being told, at once brought to her from the shelved recess. "What beautiful hair! Is it your father's or your mother's?"

Maia, who was beginning to feel more relaxed, laughed. "Don't know, really, esta-saiyett. Reckon it's mine!"

"You needn't call me 'esta-saiyett' now," said Fornis, stroking her hair as she combed it. "What am I called, Shakti?"

Ashaktis smiled. "Folda. But Maia won't know what that means."

"What does it mean, Maia; do you know?"

"No, I don't, esta-sai-I mean, Folda."

"It's old Urtan for a hunting-knife. But your hair," she went on, working out a wet tangle with the comb. "You mean you've never had to curl it; not even with all that swimming in Lake Serrelind?"

"But did I ever tell you about swimming in the lake?" said Maia, confused. She looked up into the green eyes

and, as the queen's lips, prompting her, pouted to shape the word, added "Folda."

"No, you didn't," replied the queen, "but you told me you came from Serrelind, and where else would you have learned to dive and swim like that? Tikki, my sweetheart," she called to one of the little boys, "where are the nuts?" In an instant the child was beside them, offering a silver basin of serrardoes mixed with flakes of a gingery spice.

Form's, putting one arm round him, nibbled his bare neck and shoulders. "M'tnm! Keep still!" Then again to Maia, "Tell me about Lake Serrelind! I've never been in Tonilda, you know."

Diffidently at first, but then with increasing confidence and freedom, Maia found herself talking about her childhood in the hovel; of the increasing burden, as she grew older, of being the eldest of four, and of how she used to escape, in summer, to the falls and the solitude of the deep water.

"Never had a stitch on, sometimes, half the day. It was the only place, you see, where I could be sure of being left alone."

"A naiad! And how did you come from that to Bekla?" asked Fornis, laying aside the comb and again fondling the little boy as he came up to take it away.

Maia, who had been chattering happily enough, hesitated and fell silent. The queen must know very well that she had come into the possession of Lalloc, who had sold her to Sencho. About this, and of her journey from Puhra to Bekla, she was perfectly ready to talk. What she did not want to speak about was her seduction by Tharrin and how her own mother had sold her to the slavers. For the first time she found herself wondering whether Morca might later have come to feel sorry for what she had done.

Fornis perceived her reluctance. "Sad story? They always are. I shouldn't have asked. Never mind; wouldn't want to go back, would you?" She stood up. "I've kept you talking too long, but I was so fascinated by what you were telling me. You can go on over supper. There'll be no one except you and me and Shakti here, so you can feel quite free."

The gallery, Maia now realized, as they strolled along it, with Ashaktis and the little boys following, ran entirely round the interior wall of the building, which was a hollow square. They were two floors up. Although darkness had

now fallen, she could make out below, through the trellised arcading, a garden courtyard with a carved, central fountain-basin. There was a smell of jasmine, and great moths were flitting here and there. The roosting mynahs had settled down: she could see them in the dark-little groups of darker black-crowded together under the opposite cornice.

"The whole of this upper story's private, you see," said Fornis, as they turned a corner of the gallery. "No one ever comes up here except my personal people." She turned into a doorway. "This is my supper-room. I designed the decorations myself; it's in traditional Palteshi style-to remind me of home, you know."

Maia, however, although she had been virtually asked to do so, was too much startled to admire the room, for standing just inside the doorway, in the attitude of a dignified, respectful upper servant, was none other than Zuno, dressed in a gold livery embroidered across the breast with a leopard in silver thread. His hair was trimmed and curled in imitation of the style in vogue among Elvair-ka-Virrion and his friends, and in one hand he was holding a white wand almost as tall as himself. Upon the queen's entry he bowed, so that Maia recognized him a moment before he, returning to the upright, recognized her. With this advantage, she had just time to compose her features, meet his eye gravely and enjoy his startled though instantly-controlled reaction.

"Everything in order, Zuno?" asked the queen, looking round the tranquil, candle-lit room.

Zuno bowed again.

It plainly was. The honey-colored paneling of the little hall, which measured about twenty-five feet by fifteen, had been polished with pine-scented beeswax, so that the walls and floor, gleaming gently in the candlelight, gave off a light, resinous aroma. A single step of smooth slate, banded cream and gray, surrounded the sunk rectangle of the central floor, in the middle of which stood the flower-strewn supper-table. Beside this were two couches, spread with as many cushions as even Sencho could have wished. A charcoal brazier glowed in one corner of the room and near it stood a third, slightly older boy, as handsome as the queen's two pages now taking up their places to wait at table. Several copper vessels were standing on the char-

coal, and from these came a mixture of delightful odors which made Maia realize how hungry she was.

"Come here, Vorri," said the queen, calling the lad over from beside the brazier. "M'm, getting a nice, big boy now, aren't you? Almost too big to be hanging round the Sacred Queen. I shall have to start thinking what I'm going to do with you; but just now you can pour me some wine."

"Oh, esta-saiyett," he answered, with a charming, rather coltish manner, somewhere between the studied deference of Zuno and the artless grace of the little boys, "I daren't leave the cooking, or your savory pancakes will be spoiled."

"Why, are you cooking the supper, then?" asked Fornis, surprised.

"No, esta-saiyett," interposed Zuno, again inclining gracefully from the waist ("He don't miss any chance o' doin' that," thought Maia), "the dinner itself-the trout and the boar-are being prepared in the kitchens, as usual, and the children will go down for them. But I thought the soup and the crayfish pancakes would be better if they were prepared here."

"Excellent!" said the queen, motioning Maia to one of the couches and settling herself on the other. "Then pour the wine yourself, Zuno. And you'd better get back to your pancakes, Vorri. Oh, you're like a little pancake yourself, aren't you? M'm, take care I don't eat you by mistake!"

To Maia the dinner was exquisitely enjoyable, as much for the comfort and surroundings as for the food. Nor was conversation any problem, for she had nothing to do but lie basking in the queen's favor. Fascinated by the charm of this extraordinary woman, who only a few hours before had Struck the fear of Cran into her, she no longer felt in the least out of her depth or nervous of her ability to reciprocate. Fornis, with no trace of condescension, put her entirely at her ease. They might almost, she thought, have been two young women back in Meerzat, having a bit of gossip. In her pleasure and excitement, one detail escaped her notice. Ashaktis, sitting on a stool beside For-nis's couch and from time to time joining smoothly in the talk, tasted everything the queen ate before serving her.

Although Maia stuffed herself heartily (which clearly pleased the queen), she was careful not to drink more than a little of the excellent wine. "Never do 'f I was to get