Iberville knew that this woman was not more to him
than the feeling just come to him, but he knew also that while the one
remained the other would also.
He stood up and folded his arms, looking into the silence and mist. His
hand mechanically dropped to his sword, and he glanced up proudly to the
silver flag with its golden lilies floating softly on the slight breeze
they made as they passed.
"The sword!" he said under his breath. "The world and a woman by the
sword; there is no other way."
He had the spirit of his time. The sword was its faith, its magic.
If two men loved a woman, the natural way to make happiness for all was
to let the sword do its eager office. For they had one of the least-
believed and most unpopular of truths, that a woman's love is more a
matter of mastery and possession than instinct, two men being of
comparatively equal merit and sincerity.
His figure seemed to grow larger in the mist, and the grey haze gave his
hair a frosty coating, so that age and youth seemed strangely mingled in
him. He stood motionless for a long time as the song went on:
"Qui vive!
Who saileth into the morn,
Out of the wind of the dawn?
'Follow, oh, follow me on!'
Calleth a distant horn.
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