She raised her beautiful eyes to his face and waited for him to proceed.  The pose of the head was exactly what he wanted.  Rapidly he compared every detail of her face with his memory of the statue of Athor, noting with satisfaction that his studies had been happily faithful.  His scrutiny was so swift and skilful that there seemed to be nothing unusual in his gaze.

“I am culpable but impenitent,” he continued.  “I shall not forswear mine offense.  Neither is there any need of a plea to justify myself, for my very sin is its own justification.  Behold me!  I perched myself like a sacred hawk at the mouth of the valley and filched thy likeness.  Do with me as thou wilt, but I shall die reiterating approval of my deed.”

His extravagant speech wrought an interesting change on the face before him.  There was a pronounced curve of her mouth, a slight tension in the chiseled nostril—­in fact, an indefinable disdain that had not been there before.  It would become Athor well.  Kenkenes understood the look but he did not flinch.  Instead he let his head drop slowly until he looked at her from under his brows.  Then he summoned into his eyes all the wounded feeling, pathos, soft reproach and appeal, of which his graceless young heart was capable, and gazed at her.

Khufu might have been as easily melted by the twinkle of a rain drop.  Never in his life had he faced such comprehensive contemplation.  Calm, monumental and icy disdain deepened on every feature.

Kenkenes stood motionless and suffered her to look at him.  Being a man of fine soul, the eloquent gaze spoke well-deserved rebuke.  He knew that his color had risen, and his eyes fell in spite of heroic efforts to keep them steady.  His sensations were unique; never had he experienced the like.  When he recovered himself her blue eyes were fixed absently on the distant quarries.

Every impulse urged him to set himself right in the eyes of this most discerning slave.

“Wilt thou forgive me?” he asked earnestly.  “I would I could make thee know I crave thy good will.”

There was no mistaking the honesty in these words.

Her face relaxed instantly.

“But I fear I have not set about it wisely,” he added.  “Let me give thee a peace-offering to prove my contrition.”

He slipped from about his neck the collar of golden rings and moved forward to put it about her throat.

She drew back, her face flushing hotly under an expression of positive pain.

Kenkenes dropped his hands to his sides with a limpness highly suggestive of desperate perplexity.  Was not this a slave?  And yet here was the fine feeling of a princess.  He stood, for once in his life, at a loss what to do.  He could not depart without the greatest awkwardness, and yet, if he lingered, he sacrificed his comfort.  Presently he exclaimed helplessly: 

“Rachel, do thou tell me what to say or do.  It seems that I but sink myself the deeper in the quicksand of thy disapproval at every struggle to escape.  Do thou lead me out.”