And then one day, when the proconsul had been absent some six weeks, Ahasuerus fetched Dame Melicent into the Court of Stars. Demetrios lay upon the divan supported by many pillows, as though he had not ever stirred since that first day when an unfettered Melicent, who was a princess then, exulted in her youth and comeliness.  
"Stand there," he said, and did not move at all, "that I may see my purchase."
 
And presently he smiled, though wryly. Demetrios said next:
 
"Of my own will I purchased misery. Yea, and death also. It is amusing…. Two days ago, in a brief skirmish, a league north of Calonak, the Prankish leader met me hand to hand. He has endeavoured to do this for a long while. I also wished it. Nothing could be sweeter than to feel the horse beneath me wading in his blood, I thought.. Ey, well, he dismounted me at the first encounter, though I am no weakling. I cannot understand quite how it happened. Pious people will say some deity was offended, but, for my part, I think my horse stumbled. It does not seem to matter now. What really matters, more or less, is that it would appear the man broke my backbone as one snaps a straw, since I cannot move a limb of me."
 
"Seignior," said Melicent, "you mean that you are dying!"
 
He answered, "Yes; but it is a trivial discomfort, now I see that it grieves you a little."
 
She spoke his name some three times, sobbing. It was in her mind even then how strange the happening was that she should grieve for Demetrios.
 
"O Melicent," he harshly said, "let us have done with lies! That Frankish captain who has brought about my death is Perion de la Forêt. He has not ever faltered in the duel between us since your paltry emeralds paid for his first armament.—Why, yes, I lied. I always hoped the man would do as in his place I would have done. I hoped in vain. For many long and hard-fought years this handsome maniac has been assailing Nacumera, tirelessly. Then the water-demon's daughter, that strange and wayward woman of Brunbelois, attempted to ensnare him. And that too was in vain. She failed, my spies reported—even Dame Mélusine, who had not ever failed before in such endeavours."
 
"But certainly the foul witch failed!" cried Melicent. A glorious change had come into her face, and she continued, quite untruthfully, "Nor did I ever believe that this vile woman had made Perion prove faithless."
 
"No, the fool's lunacy is rock, like yours. En cor gentil domnei per mort no passa, as they sing in your native country…. Ey, how indomitably I lied, what pains I took, lest you should ever know of this! And now it does not seem to matter any more…. The love this man bears for you," snarled Demetrios, "is sprung of the High God whom we diversely worship. The love I bear you is human, since I, too, am only human." And Demetrios chuckled. "Talk, and talk, and talk! There is no bird in any last year's nest."
 
She laid her hand upon his unmoved hand, and found it cold and swollen. She wept to see the broken tyrant, who to her at least had been not all unkind.
 
He said, with a great hunger in his eyes:
 
"So likewise ends the duel which was fought between us two. I would salute the victor if I could. … Ey, Melicent, I still consider you and Perion are fools. We have a not intolerable world to live in, and common-sense demands we make the most of every tidbit this world affords. Yet you can find in it only an exercising-ground for infatuation, and in all its contents—pleasures and pains alike—only so many obstacles for rapt insanity to override. I do not understand this mania; I would I might have known it, none the less. Always I envied you more than I loved you. Always my desire was less to win the love of Melicent than to love Melicent as Melicent loved Perion. I was incapable of this. Yet I have loved you. That was the reason, I believe, I put aside my purchased toy." It seemed to puzzle him.
 
"Fair friend, it is the most honourable of reasons. You have done chivalrously. In this, at least, you have done that which would be not unworthy of Perion de la Forêt." A woman never avid for strained subtleties, it may be that she never understood, quite, why Demetrios laughed.
 
He said:
 
"I mean to serve you now, as I had always meant to serve you some day. Ey, yes, I think I always meant to give you back to Perion as a free gift. Meanwhile to see, and to writhe in seeing your perfection, has meant so much to me that daily I have delayed such a transfiguration of myself until to-morrow." The man grimaced. "My son Orestes, who will presently succeed me, has been summoned. I will order that he conduct you at once into Perion's camp—yonder by Quesiton. I think I shall not live three days."
 
"I would not leave you, friend, until—"
 
His grin was commentary and completion equally. Demetrios observed:
 
"A dead dog has no teeth wherewith to serve even virtue. Oh, no, my w............