Mora's words
concerning truth, gave him a background of comfort. Even so had he
ever himself felt. But would it prove that his honesty had indeed
shattered his chances of happiness, and hers?
A new name? . . . What might it be? . . . What the mischief, had the
Bishop named his palfrey? . . . Sheba? Nay, that was the ass!
Solomon? Nay, that was the mare! Yet--how came a mare to be named
Solomon?
In his disturbed mental state it irritated him unreasonably that a mare
should be called after a king with seven hundred wives! Then he
remembered "black, but comely," and arrived at the right name,
Shulamite. Of course! Not Solomon but Shulamite. He had read that
love-poem of the unnamed Eastern shepherd, with the Rabbi in the
mountain fastness. The Rabbi had pointed out that the word used in
that description signified "sunburned." The lovely Shulamite maiden,
exposed to the Eastern sun while tending her kids and keeping the
vineyards, had tanned a ruddy brown, beside which the daughters of
Jerusalem, enclosed in King Solomon's scented harem, looked pale as
wilting lilies. Remembering the glossy coat of the black mare, Hugh
wondered, with a momentary sense of merriment, whether the Bishop
supposed the maiden of the "Song of Songs" to have been an Ethiopian.
Then he remembered "Iconoklastes." Yes, surely! The palfrey was
Iconoklastes. Now wherefore gave the Bishop such a name to his white
palfrey?
Striding blindly about the lawn, of a sudden the Knight stepped full on
to a flower-bed.
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