“Thy vision is good, Allan,” she said indifferently, “and wide also, since thou canst see what passes in the sun or distant stars, and pictures of things to be in the water, to say nothing of other pictures in a woman’s eyes, all within an hour.  Well, this savage business concerns me not and of it I want to know no more.  Yet it would appear that here the old wizard who is thy friend, has the answer that he desires.  For there in the picture the king he hates lies dying while he hisses in his ear and thou dost watch the end.  What more can he seek?  Tell him it when ye meet, and tell him also it is my will that in future he should trouble me less, since I love not to be wakened from my sleep to listen to his half-instructed talk and savage vapourings.  Indeed, he presumes too much.  And now enough of him and his dark plots.  Ye have your desires, all of you, and are paid in full.”

“Over-paid, perhaps,” I said with a sigh.

“Ah, Allan, I think that Lesson thou hast learned pleases thee but little.  Well, be comforted for the thing is common.  Hast never heard that there is but one morsel more bitter to the taste than desire denied, namely, desire fulfilled?  Believe me that there can be no happiness for man until he attains a land where all desire is dead.”

“That is what the Buddha preaches, Ayesha.”

“Aye, I remember the doctrines of that wise man well, who without doubt had found a key to the gate of Truth, one key only, for, mark thou, Allan, there are many.  Yet, man being man must know desires, since without them, robbed of ambitions, strivings, hopes, fears, aye and of life itself, the race must die, which is not the will of the Lord of Life who needs a nursery for his servant’s souls, wherein his swords of Good and Ill shall shape them to his pattern.  So it comes about, Allan, that what we think the worst is oft the best for us, and with that knowledge, if we are wise, let us assuage our bitterness and wipe away our tears.”

“I have often thought that,” I said.

“I doubt it not, Allan, since though it has pleased me to make a jest of thee, I know that thou hast thy share of wisdom, such little share as thou canst gather in thy few short years.  I know, too, that thy heart is good and aspires high, and Friend—­well, I find in thee a friend indeed, as I think not for the first time, nor certainly for the last.  Mark, Allan, what I say, not a lover, but a friend, which is higher far.  For when passion dies with the passing of the flesh, if there be no friendship what will remain save certain memories that, mayhap, are well forgot?  Aye, how would those lovers meet elsewhere who were never more than lovers?  With weariness, I hold, as they stared into each other’s empty soul, or even with disgust.

“Therefore the wise will seek to turn those with whom Fate mates them into friends, since otherwise soon they will be lost for aye.  More, if they are wiser still, having made them friends, they will suffer them to find lovers where they will.  Good maxims, are they not?  Yet hard to follow, or so, perchance, thou thinkest them—­as I do.”