ld, to live or die according to your wish. Or that you were priestess
in some temple of forgotten gods, where I might steal at daybreak and at
dusk to gaze upon your beauty; kneel with clasped hands, watching your
sandalled feet coming and going about the altar steps; lie with pressed
lips upon the stones your trailing robes had touched."

She laughed a light mocking laugh. "I should prefer to be the queen.
The role of priestess would not suit me. Temples are so cold." A slight
shiver passed through her. She made a movement with her hand, beckoning
me to her feet. "That is how you shall love me, Paul," she said,
"adoring me, worshipping me--blindly. I will be your queen and treat
you--as it chooses me. All I think, all I do, I will tell you, and you
shall tell me it is right. The queen can do no wrong."

She took my face between her hands, and bending over me, looked long
and steadfastly into my eyes. "You understand, Paul, the queen can do
no wrong--never, never." There had crept into her voice a note of
vehemence, in her face was a look almost of appeal.

"My queen can do no wrong," I repeated. And she laughed and let her
hands fall back upon her lap.

"Now you may sit beside me. So much honour, Paul, shall you have to-day,
but it will have to last you long. And you may tell me all you have been
doing, maybe it will amuse me; and afterwards you shall hear what I have
done, and shall say that it was right and good of me."

I obeyed, sketching my story briefly, yet leaving nothing untold, not
even the transit of the Lady 'Ortensia, ashamed of the episode though I
was. At that she looked a little grave.

"You must do nothing again, Paul," she commanded, "to make me feel
ashamed of you, or I shall dismiss you from my presence for ever. I must
be proud of you, or you shall not serve me. In dishonouring yourself you
are dishonouring me. I am angry with you, Paul. Do not let me be angry
with you again."

And so that passed; and although my love for her--as I know well she
wished and sought it should--failed to save me at all times from the
apish voices whispering ever to the beast within us, I know the desire
to be worthy of her, to honour her with all my being, helped my life as
only love can. The glory of the morning fades, the magic veil is rent;
we see all things with cold, clear eyes. My love was a woman. She lies
dead. They have mocked her white sweet limbs with rags and tatters, but
they cannot cheat love's eye