“Or I thought that thou wouldst bid me reveal what no woman ever told, the bitter, naked truth—­all my sins and sorrows, all the wandering fancies of my fickle thought; even what thou knowest not and perchance ne’er shalt know, who I am and whence I came, and how to thy charmed eyes I seemed to change from foul to fair, and what is the purpose of my love for thee, and what the meaning of that tale of an angry goddess—­who never was except in dreams.

“I thought—­nay, no matter what I thought, save that thou wert far other than thou art, my Leo, and in so high a moment that thou wouldst seek to pass the mystic gates my glory can throw wide and with me tread an air supernal to the hidden heart of things.  Yet thy prayer is but the same that the whole world whispers beneath the silent moon, in the palace and the cottage, among the snows and on the burning desert’s waste.  ’Oh! my love, thy lips, thy lips.  Oh! my love, be mine, now, now, beneath the moon, beneath the moon!’

“Leo, I thought better, higher, of thee.”

“Mayhap, Ayesha, thou wouldest have thought worse of me had I been content with thy suns and constellations and spiritual gifts and dominations that I neither desire nor understand.

“If I had said to thee:  Be thou my angel, not my wife; divide the ocean that I may walk its bed; pierce the firmament and show me how grow the stars; tell me the origins of being and of death and instruct me in their issues; give up the races of mankind to my sword, and the wealth of all the earth to fill my treasuries.  Teach me also how to drive the hurricane as thou canst do, and to bend the laws of nature to my purpose:  on earth make me half a god—­as thou art.

“But Ayesha, I am no god; I am a man, and as a man I seek the woman whom I love.  Oh! divest thyself of all these wrappings of thy power—­that power which strews thy path with dead and keeps me apart from thee.  If only for one short night forget the ambition that gnaws unceasingly at thy soul; I say forget thy greatness and be a woman and—­my wife.”

She made no answer, only looked at him and shook her head, causing her glorious hair to ripple like water beneath a gentle breeze.

“Thou deniest me,” he went on with gathering strength, “and that thou canst not do, that thou mayest not do, for Ayesha, thou hast sworn, and I demand the fulfilment of thine oath.

“Hark thou.  I refuse thy gifts; I will have none of thy rule who ask no Pharaoh’s throne and wish to do good to men and not to kill them—­that the world may profit.  I will not go with thee to Kor, nor be bathed in the breath of Life.  I will leave thee and cross the mountains, or perish on them, nor with all thy strength canst thou hold me to thy side, who indeed needest me not.  No longer will I endure this daily torment, the torment of thy presence and thy sweet words; thy loving looks, thy promises for next year, next year—­next year.  So keep thine oath or let me begone.”