Ani gave her his hand and asked: 

“Did you also as my friend speak to Bent-Anat?  Do I interpret your silence rightly?”

Katuti sadly shook her head; but Ani went on:  “Yesterday that would have decided me to give her up; but to-day my courage has risen, and if the Hathors be my friends I may yet win her.”

With these words he went in advance of the widow into the hall, where Paaker was still walking uneasily up and down.

The pioneer bowed low before the Regent, who returned the greeting with a half-haughty, half-familiar wave of the hand, and when he had seated himself in an arm-chair politely addressed Paaker as the son of a friend, and a relation of his family.

“All the world,” he said, “speaks of your reckless courage.  Men like you are rare; I have none such attached to me.  I wish you stood nearer to me; but Rameses will not part with you, although—­although—­In point of fact your office has two aspects; it requires the daring of a soldier, and the dexterity of a scribe.  No one denies that you have the first, but the second—­the sword and the reed-pen are very different weapons, one requires supple fingers, the other a sturdy fist.  The king used to complain of your reports—­is be better satisfied with them now?”

“I hope so,” replied the Mohar; “my brother Horus is a practised writer, and accompanies me in my journeys.”

“That is well,” said Ani.  “If I had the management of affairs I should treble your staff, and give you four—­five—­six scribes under you, who should be entirely at your command, and to whom you could give the materials for the reports to be sent out.  Your office demands that you should be both brave and circumspect; these characteristics are rarely united; but there are scriveners by hundreds in the temples.”

“So it seems to me,” said Paaker.

Ani looked down meditatively, and continued—­Rameses is fond of comparing you with your father.  That is unfair, for he—­who is now with the justified—­was without an equal; at once the bravest of heroes and the most skilful of scribes.  You are judged unjustly; and it grieves me all the more that you belong, through your mother, to my poor but royal house.  We will see whether I cannot succeed in putting you in the right place.  For the present you are required in Syria almost as soon as you have got home.  You have shown that you are a man who does not fear death, and who can render good service, and you might now enjoy your wealth in peace with your wife.”

“I am alone,” said Paaker.

“Then, if you come home again, let Katuti seek you out the prettiest wife in Egypt,” said the Regent smiling.  “She sees herself every day in her mirror, and must be a connoisseur in the charms of women.”

Ani rose with these words, bowed to Paaker with studied friendliness, gave his hand to Katuti, and said as he left the hall: 

“Send me to-day the—­the handkerchief—­by the dwarf Nemu.”