For once the young sculptor’s ready speech failed him.  He drew near her, his eyes shining, his lips parted, drinking every word as if it were authoritative privilege for him to indulge his love of beauty without limit and openly.  Here was that which he had sought in vain from those nearest to him—­that which he had ceased to believe was to be found in Egypt—­comfort, sympathy, perfect understanding.  What if it came from the lips of an hereditary slave of the Pharaoh—­a toiler in the quarries, an infidel, an alien nomad?  If an alien, a slave, an unbeliever thought so deeply, felt so acutely and responded so discerningly to such delicate requirements—­the slave, the nomad for him!

“Rachel,” he began almost helplessly, “I am beyond extrication in debt to thee—­thou golden, thou undecipherable mystery!”

She flushed to her very brows and her eyes fell quickly.

“I have appealed to all sources from which I might justly expect sympathy—­to men of reason, of power, of mine own kin, and to women of heart—­and not once have I found in them the broad and kindly understanding which thou hast displayed for me out of the goodness of thy beautiful heart.  Behold! thou hast given speech to my own hidden longings, summarized my difficulties, foreshadowed my misfortunes, deplored them—­aye, of a truth, heaved my very sighs for me!” His voice fell and grew reverent.  “I would call thee an immortal, but there is a better title for thee—­woman—­a true woman—­and thou dost even uplift the name.”

For the first time in the history of their acquaintance she laughed, not mirthfully, but low and very happily, and the fleeting glimpse she gave him of her eyes showed them radiant and glad.  He caught her hands, the bundle of herbs fell, and drawing her near him, he lifted the pink palms to his lips and pressed them there.

“Nay,” she said, recovering herself and withdrawing her hands, “I am not an Egyptian but a Hebrew, unbiased by the prejudices of thy nation.  It is not strange that I can understand thy rebellion, which is but a rift in thine Egyptian make-up through which reason shows.  Any alien could comfort thee as well.”

“And thou hast no more sympathy for me than any alien would have?” he asked, somewhat piqued.

“Is there any other sympathizing alien with whom I may compare and learn?” she asked with a smile.

She took up her bundle of herbs again and seemed to be preparing to leave him.

“How dost thou know these things,” he asked hurriedly; “all these things—­sculpture, religion, history?”

“I was not born a slave,” she answered simply.

“Nay, cast out that word.  I would never hear thee speak it, Rachel.”