On entering the conservatory, Nurse seemed as much agitated as though she, instead of Gnulemah, were to be chief actress in the coming ceremony.  At the Sphinx door she relinquished Balder’s arm, and, hurrying across the conservatory, vanished behind Gnulemah’s curtain.  As she passed out of sight she threw a parting glance over her shoulder.  The action recalled Gnulemah’s backward look of the day previous, when she had fled at the sound of the closing door.  What ugly fatality suggested so fantastic a parallel between this creature and Balder’s future wife!

He entered the temple, which glowed and sparkled like a sombre gem.  Many-colored lamps were hung on wires passing round the hall from pillar to massive pillar.  Their glare defined the strange character of the Egyptian architecture and ornament; nevertheless, the place looked less real and substantial than in the morning.  It seemed the impalpable creation of an enchanter, which his wand would anon dissolve into air once more!

On each side the door sat a statue of polished red granite, with calm regular face and hands on knees.  Helwyse, who had not observed them before, fancied them summoned as witnesses to the compact then to be solemnized.  Doubtless they had witnessed ceremonies not less solemn or imposing.

On the black marble altar at the further end of the hall was burning some rich incense, whose perfumed smoke, clambering heavily upwards, mingled with that of the lamps beneath the ceiling.  On the polished floor, in front, lay a rug of dark blue cloth, heavily bordered with gold; upon it were represented in conscientious profile a number of lank-limbed Egyptians performing some mystic rite.  To the right of the altar stood the priest Manetho, apparently engaged in prayer.  Balder spoke to him.

“This is more like a tomb than a wedding hall.  Would not the conservatory have been more fitting?”

“Better make a tomb the starting-point of marriage than its goal!” smiled the holy man.  “And is it not well that your posterity should begin from the spot which saw the union that gave you being? and beneath the eyes of him but for whom neither this hall nor we who here assemble would to-day have existed!” He pointed to the mummy of old Hiero Glyphic, the aspect of which might have left a bad taste in the mouth of Joy herself.  Balder shrugged his shoulders.

“It matters little, perhaps, where the seed is sown, so that the flower reach the sunshine at last.  But your mummy is an ill-favored wedding-guest, whatever honor we may owe the man who once lived in it.  I would, not have Gnulemah—­”

“Behold her!” interrupted Manetho, speaking as hough a handful of dust had suddenly got in his throat.

Yes, there she came, the old Nurse following her like a misshapen shadow.  Daughter of sun and moon,—­a modern Pandora endowed with the strength of a loftier nature!  She was robed in creamy white; her pendants were woven pearls.  Fine lines of virgin gold gleamed in her turban, and through her long veil, and along the folds of her girdle.  But the serpent necklace had been replaced by the dandelion chain that Balder had made her.  Her lips and cheeks were daintily aflame, and a tender fire flickered in her eyes, which saw only Balder.  She was a bridal song such as had not been sung since Solomon.