owed herself to me as more clever and thoughtful than the common
herd."

"Ay," she answered, with a sigh that I think was real enough in its way,
"an Empress loses much that meaner woman gets as her common due."

"In what particular?"

"She misses the honest wooing of her equals."

"If you set up for a Goddess--" I said.

"Pah! I wish to be no Goddess to you, Deucalion. That was for the common
people; it gives me more power with them; it helps my schemes. All you
Seven higher priests know that trick of calling down the fire, and it
pleased me to filch it. Can you not be generous, and admit that a woman
may be as clever in finding out these natural laws as your musty elder
priests?"

"Remains that you are Empress."

"Nor Empress either. Just think that there is a woman seated beside you
on this cushion, Deucalion, and look upon her, and say what words
come first to your lips. Have done with ceremonies, and have done with
statecraft. Do you wish to wait on as you are till all your manhood
withers? It is well not to hurry unduly in these matters: I am with you
there. Yet, who but a fool watches a fruit grow ripe, and then leaves it
till it is past its prime?"

I looked on her glorious beauty, but as I live it left me cold. But I
remembered the command that had been laid upon me, and forced a smile.
"I may have been fastidious," I said, "but I do not regret waiting this
long."

"Nor I. But I have played my life as a maid, time enough. I am a woman,
ripe, and full-blooded, and the day has come when I should be more than
what I have been."

I let my hand clench on hers. "Take me to husband then, and I will be a
good man to you. But, as I am bidden speak to Phorenice the woman now,
and not to the Empress, I offer fair warning that I will be no puppet."

She looked at me sidelong. "I have been master so long that I think
it will come as enjoyment to be mastered sometimes. No, Deucalion, I
promise that--you shall be no puppet. Indeed, it would take a lusty lung
to do the piping if you were to dance against your will."

"Then, as man and wife we will live together in the royal pyramid, and
we will rule this country with all the wit that it has pleased the High
Gods to bestow on us. These miserable differences shall be swept aside;
the rebels shall go back to their homes, and hunt, and fight the beasts
in the provinces, and the Priests' Clan shall be pacified. Phorenice,
you and I will throw ourselves brain and soul