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and lurching across the wilderness. Why? Your purposes are over-intricate and too subtle for my comprehension. I will not compel you to Service.”
    Sune leaned toward Mieltrude. “Myrus is a cynical old harpy. Why won’t he simply admit that the Mneiodes want to demean the Ymphs?”
    Mieltrude shrugged. “Nothing anyone says can be taken at face value. Not excepting the remarks of Ramus Ymph.”
    “And your own?” murmured Sune.
    “Sometimes I don’t know myself.”
    Ramus Ymph had performed a gracious salute toward Myrus the Mneiodes. “I am sorry not to have persuaded the noble Myrus of my Regularity. The misunderstanding, I hope, does not originate in me.”
    Myrus the Mneiodes deigned no reply.
    Mieltrude muttered to Sune: “My father discounted Quorce and Mneiodes. Angeluke is the uncertain vote.”
    “And if Angeluke won’t urge?”
    “I don’t know my father’s intent. He is not predictable.”
    “Not even to his daughter?”
    “I never trouble to speculate; I obey without question.”
    Ramus Ymph again addressed the Servants. “I used the word ‘misunderstanding’ with design. After all, ‘change’ is not necessarily equivalent to unwholesome innovation. Subtleties are the curse of our old civilization. If change there must be, I would wish a renascence of simplicity, a re-dedication to Regularity.”
    Mieltrude shook her head in admiration and disparagement together. “Have I heard right? He who is most devious of all!”
    “Poor Ramus has gone too far; he is fantasizing. Look at that odious Ambish; how he gloats!”
    “Forget Ambish; he has already declared. Save your concern for Neuptras the Angeluke.”
    Neuptras the Angeluke, a man tall and fair, with eyes never fixing directly on their object, had listened to the proceedings with a moony smile of bewilderment. He spoke with careful attention to pitch and accent, as if intoning a strophe. “The third opinion is of course the most crucial. However, my quite definite ideas are not realized either by endorsement or rejection… Hm. It is necessary that I reflect and reflect again, deeply… I tend to feel that we, as Guardians Mandator of our delightful realm, must be all things at once.
    Each of us must, so to speak, play a dozen instruments together, in this magnificent concert which is our contemporary life… So that, while preparing for all eventualities with flexible vision, we also stand, like doughty warriors, ready to repugn the enemy… I admire and applaud the style of Ramus Ymph! The Ymph ilk has given of its best! But—” A pensive pause.
    Mieltrude gave a quiet scornful laugh; Sune slumped desolately back in her seat. “He means ‘no’,” said Mieltrude.
    “I will not attend his masque,” declared Sune.
    “—in so responsible a post, I wonder if a dynamic man is not at a definite disadvantage? Here is where intricacy and long slow deliberation, with ideas drifting, forming, dissolving, is most essential. Ramus Ymph is, naturally, anxious to serve Thaery. Perhaps he can serve us best where his magnificent abilities find their fullest scope: not here in this swirling pool of ambiguities and abstractions, but—let us say—as an important Equalizer 16 … I hasten to remark that I do not deplore intricacy or elaboration as evils in themselves; to the contrary. Are not these qualities our first line of defense against low-caste parvenus?
    With my effusive compliments and most glorious best wishes to Ramus Ymph, I will somewhat indecisively refrain from calling him to Service.”
    Ramus Ymph lowered his head and seemed to be studying the rug. He looked up, but before he could speak a gong sounded and the Nunciant called out: “It is the time of recess. The nominee chooses to retire to his chamber and the Four Servants must continue their reflections.”
    Ramus Ymph turned on his heel and strode to the waiting room followed by his two somber sponsors.
    Ambish the Quorce and Myrus the Mneiodes rose to their feet and spoke