Inside, that look of permanence and solidity was manifest, for thick carpeting in the Milimorn style, dark green shot through with scarlet, had been woven to the underside of the roof canvas to give it a rich, vivid texture, and the heavy tentpoles were banded with glittering metal, and the flooring was of pale violet slate, cut thin and buffed to a keen polish. The furnishings were simple—divans, long massive tables, some old-fashioned armoires and chests, and not much else, but everything sturdy and in its way regal.

"Is this house anything like the one the usurper's men torched?" Valentine asked, when he was alone with Nascimonte a short while after they had entered.

"In construction, identical in all respects, my lord. The original, you know, was designed by the first and greatest Nascimonte, six hundred years ago. When we rebuilt, we used the old plans, and altered nothing. I reclaimed some of the furnishings from the creditors and duplicated the others. The plantation too—everything is just as it was before they came and carried out their drunken wrecking. The dam has been rebuilt, the fields have been drained, the fruit trees replanted: five years of constant toil, and now at last the havoc of that awful week is undone. All of which I owe to you, my lord. You have made me whole again—you have made all the world whole again—"

"And so may it remain, I pray."

"And so it shall, my lord."

"Ah, do you think so, Nascimonte? Do you think we are out of our troubles yet?"

"My lord, what troubles?" Nascimonte lightly touched the Coronal's arm, and led him to a broad porch from which there was a magnificent prospect of all his property. By the twilight glow and the soft radiance of drifting yellow glowfloats tethered in the trees, Valentine saw a long sweep of lawn leading down to elegantly maintained fields and gardens, and beyond it the serene crescent of Lake Ivory, on whose bright surface the many peaks and crags of Mount Ebersinul, dominating the scene, were indistinctly mirrored.

There was the faint sound of distant music, the twanging of gardolans, perhaps, and some voices raised in the last gentle songs of the long festal afternoon. All was peace and prosperity out there. "When you look upon this, my lord, can you believe that trouble exists in the world?"

"I take your point, old friend. But there is more to the world than what we can see from your porch."

"It is the most peaceful of worlds, my lord."

"So it has been, for thousands of years. But how much longer will that long peace endure?"

Nascimonte stared, as though seeing Valentine for the first time that day.

"My lord?"

"Do I sound gloomy, Nascimonte?"

"I've never seen you so somber, my lord. I could almost believe that the trick has been played again, that a false Valentine has been substituted for the one I knew."

With a thin smile Valentine said, "I am the true Valentine. But a very tired one, I think."