“Thou dost love me?”

A deep sigh broke from him, ... he moved nearer to her, ... he entwined her warm waist with his arms, and stared upon her as though he drank her beauty in with his eyes.  Up to the crowning masses of her dusky hair where the little serpents’ heads darted forth glisteningly,—­over the dainty curve of her white shoulders and bosom where the symbolic Eye seemed to regard him with a sleepy weirdness,—­down to the blue-veined, small feet in the silvery sandals, and up again to the red witchery of her mouth and black splendor of those twin fire-jewels that flashed beneath her heavy lashes—­his gaze wandered hungrily, searchingly, passionately,—­his heart beat with a loud, impatient eagerness like a wild thing struggling in its cage, but though his lips moved, he said no word,—­she too was silent.  So passed or seemed to pass some minutes,—­minutes that were almost terrible in the weight of mysterious meaning they held unuttered.  Then, with a half-smothered cry, he suddenly released her and sprang erect.

“Love!” he cried, ...  “Nay!—­’tis a word for children and angels! —­not for me!  What have I to do with love? ... what hast thou? ... thou, Lysia, who dost make the lives of men thy sport and their torments thy mockery!  There is no name for this fever that consumes me when I look upon thee, ... no name for this unquiet ravishment that draws me to thee in mingled bliss and agony!  If I must perish of mine own bitter-sweet frenzy, let me be slain now and most utterly, ... but Love has no abiding-place ’twixt me and thee, Lysia! ...  Love! ... ah, no, no! ... speak no more of love ... it hath a charmed sound, recalling to my soul some glory I have lost!”

He spoke wildly, incoherently, scarcely knowing what he said, and she, half lying on her couch of roses, looked at him curiously, with somber, meditative eyes.  A smile of delicate derision parted her lips.

“Of a truth, our late feasting hath roused in thee a most singular delirium!” she murmured indolently with a touch of cold amusement in her accents—­“Thou dost seem to dwell in the Past rather than the Present!  What ails thee? ...  Come hither—­closer!”—­and she stretched out her lovely arms on which the twisted diamond snakes glittered in such flashing coils,—­“Come! ... or is thy manful guise mere feigning, and dost thou fear me?”

“Fear thee!”—­and stung to a sudden heat Theos made one bound to her side and seizing her slim wrists, held them in a vise-like grip—­“So little do I fear thee, Lysia, so well do I know thee, that in my very caresses I would slay thee, couldst thou thus be slain!  Thou art to me the living presence of an unforgotten Sin,—­ a sin most deadly sweet and unrepented of, . . ah! why dost thou tempt me!”—­and he bent over her more ardently—­“must I not meet my death at thy hands?  I must,—­and more than death!—­yet for thy kiss I will risk hell,—­for one embrace of thine I will brave perdition!  Ah, cruel enchantress!”—­and