At the doors the Lady Senci met him and drew him over to the diphros, now vacated by Bettis.

And there she took his face between her hands and kissed him.

“Hail! thou son of the murket!” she said.

“Having much, I am given more,” he responded.  “Behold the prodigality of good fortune.  The Hathors exalt me in the world and add thereto a kiss from the Lady Senci.”

“I was impelled truly,” she confessed, “but by thine own face as well as by the Hathors.  Kenkenes, if I did not know thee, I should say thou wast pretending—­thou, to whom pretense is impossible.”

He did not answer, for there was no desire in his heart to tell his secret; his experience with Hotep had warned him.  Yet the unusual winsomeness of his father’s noble love was hard to resist.

“Thy manner this evening betrays thee as striving to hide one spirit and show another,” she continued, seeing he made no response.

“Thou hast said,” he admitted at last; “and I have not succeeded.  That is a sorry incapacity, for the world has small patience with a man who can not make his face lie.”

“Bitter!  Thou!” she chid.

“Have I not spoken truly?” he persisted.

“Aye, but why rebel?  No man but hides a secret sorrow, and this would be a tearful world did every one weep when he felt like it.”

“But I am most overwhelmingly constrained to weep, so I shall stay out of the world and vex it not.”

She looked at him with startled eyes.

“Art thou so troubled, then?” she asked in a lowered tone.

“Doubly troubled—­and hopelessly,” he replied, his eyes away from her.

She came nearer and, putting up her hands, laid them on his shoulders.

“You are so young, Kenkenes—–­so young, and youth is like to make much of the little first sorrows.  Furthermore, these are troublous days.  Saw you not the temper of the assembly to-night?  Egypt is a-quiver with irritation.  Every little ripple in the smooth current of life seems magnified—­each man seeketh provocation to vent his causeless exasperation.  And when such ferment worketh in the gathering of the young, it is portentous.  It bodeth evil!  You are but caught in the fever, my Kenkenes, and your little vexations are inflamed until they hurt, of a truth.  Get to your rest, and to-morrow her smile will be more propitious.”

Kenkenes looked at the uplifted face and noted the laugh in the eyes.

“What a tattling face is mine,” he said, “Is her name written there also?” He drew his fingers across his forehead.

“No need; I have been young and many are the young that have wooed and wed beneath mine eyes.  I know the signs.”  She nodded sagely and continued after a little pause: 

“I shall not pry further into your sorrow, Kenkenes; but you are good and handsome, and winsome, and wealthy, and young, and it is a stony heart that could hold out long against you.  I would wager my mummy that the maiden is this instant well-nigh ready to cast herself at your feet, save that your very excellence deters her.  Go, now, and let your dreams be sweeter than these last waking hours have been.”