y was to come from the evening, I sat down
in a vacant place near to the dais, and only a few paces from where the
pale, ghost-eyed Hath was already seated.

Almost immediately afterwards music began to buzz all about the
hall--music of the kind the people loved which always seemed to me as
though it were exuding from the tables and benches, so disembodied and
difficult it was to locate; all the sleepy gallants raised their
flower-encircled heads at the same time, seizing their wine-cups,
already filled to the brim, and the door at the bottom of the hall
opening, the ladies, preceded by one carrying a mysterious vase covered
with a glittering cloth, came in.

Now, being somewhat thirsty, I had already drunk half the wine in my
beaker, and whether it was that draught, drugged as all Martian wines
are, or the sheer loveliness of the maids themselves, I cannot say, but
as the procession entered, and, dividing, circled round under the
colonnades of the hall, a sensation of extraordinary felicity came over
me--an emotion of divine contentment purged of all grossness--and I
stared and stared at the circling loveliness, gossamer-clad,
flower-girdled, tripping by me with vapid delight. Either the wine was
budding in my head, or there was little to choose from amongst them,
for had any of those ladies sat down in the vacant place beside me, I
should certainly have accepted her as a gift from heaven, without
question or cavil. But one after another they slipped by, modestly
taking their places in the shadows until at last came Princess Heru,
and at the sight of her my soul was stirred.

She came undulating over the white marble, the loveliness of her fairy
person dimmed but scarcely hidden by a robe of softest lawn in colour
like rose-petals, her eyes aglitter with excitement and a charming
blush upon her face.

She came straight up to me, and, resting a dainty hand upon my
shoulder, whispered, "Are you come as a spectator only, dear Mr. Jones,
or do you join in our custom tonight?"

"I came only as a bystander, lady, but the fascination of the
opportunity is deadly--"

"And have you any preference?"--this in the softest little voice from
somewhere in the nape of my neck. "Strangers sometimes say there are
fair women in Seth."

"None--till you came; and now, as was said a long time ago, 'All is
dross that is not Helen.' Dearest lady," I ran on, detaining her by
the fingertips and gazing up into those shy and star-lik