‘I’ scrawled on the face of Nature!  ‘I’ am afflicted, let none dare to rejoice!  ‘I’ would be glad, let none presume to grieve!” ...  She laughed, a little low laugh of icy satire, and then resumed:  “I thank thee for thy proffered service, sir stranger, albeit I need it not,—­nor do I care to claim it at thy hands.  Thou art my guest—­no more!  Whether thou wilt hereafter deserve to be enrolled my bondsman depends upon thy prowess and—­ my humor!”

Her beautiful eyes flashed scornfully, and there was something cruel in her glance.  Theos felt it sting him like a sharp blow.  His nerves quivered,—­his spirit rose in arms against the cynical hauteur of this woman whom he loved; yes,—­loved, with a curious sense of revived passion—­passion that seemed to have slept in a tomb for ages, and that now suddenly sprang into life and being, like a fire kindled anew on dead ashes!

Acting on a sudden proud impulse he raised his head and looked at her with a bold steadfastness,—­a critical scrutiny,—­a calmly discriminating valuation of her physical charms that for the moment certainly appeared to startle her self-possession, for a deep flush colored the fairness of her face and then faded, leaving her pale as marble.  Her emotion, whatever it was, lasted but a second,—­yet in that second he had measured his mental strength against hers, and had become aware of his own supremacy!  This consciousness filled him with peculiar satisfaction.  He drew a long breath like one narrowly escaped from close peril.  He had now no fear of her—­only a great, all-absorbing, all-evil love, and to that he was recklessly content to yield.  Her eyes dwelt glitteringly first upon him and then on Sah-luma, as the eyes of a falcon dwell on its prey, and her smile was touched with a little malice, as she said, addressing them both: 

“Come, fair sirs! we will not linger in this wilderness of wild flowers.  A feast awaits us yonder—­a feast prepared for those who, like yourselves obey the creed of sweet self indulgence, ... the world-wide creed wherein men find no fault, no shadow of inconsistency!  The truest wisdom is to enjoy,—­the only philosophy that which teaches us how best to gratify our own desires!  Delight cannot satiate the soul, nor mirth engender weariness!  Follow me!—­” and with a lithe movement she swept toward the door, her pet tigress creeping closely after her; then suddenly looking back she darted a lustiously caressing glance over her shoulder at Sah-luma and stretched out her hand.  He at once caught it in his own and kissed it with an almost brusque eagerness.

“I thought you had forgotten me!” he murmured in a vexed, half-reproachful tone.

“Forgotten you?  Forgotten Sah-luma?  Impossible!” and her silvery laughter shook the air into little throbs of music.  “When the greatest poet of the age is forgotten, then fall Al-Kyris! ... for there shall be no more need of kingdoms!”

Laughing still and allowing her hand to remain in his, she passed out of the pavilion, and Theos followed them both as a man might follow the beckoning sylphs in a fairy dream.