He left the curtain and came close to her. "Had the words come smoothly
over thy lips, they would have meant any wife--any husband. But thy very
faltering names thee and me. What is the boon that thou mayest justly
ask of me?"

"My father--."

"Hold! There, too, I make a restriction. Already have I suffered thy
father sufficiently."

Tears leaped into her insulted eyes, and in the bright light, shining
from a lamp above her head, her emotion was very apparent.

"Thou hast begun well in thy siege of my heart, Rameses," she said. "I
am like to love thee, if thou dost woo me with affronts!"

"I am as like to win thee with rough words as I am with soft speeches. I
had thought thee above pretense, Masanath."

"I pretend not," she cried, stamping her foot. "And if thou wouldst know
how I esteem thee, I can tell thee most truthfully."

He laughed and caught her hands. "Nay, save thy judgment. Thou hast a
long life with me before thee, and the minds of women can change in the
blink of an eye. Furthermore, I love thee none the less because thou art
so untamed. Thou art the world I would subdue. So thou dost not give
allegiance to another conqueror, I shall not grieve over thy rebellion.
Is there another?" he asked.

"I would liefer wed with well-nigh any other man in Egypt than with thee,
Rameses," she replied deliberately.

The declaration swept him off his feet.

"Gods! but thou dost hate me," he cried. Panic possessed her for a
moment, remembering Hotep, but it was too late. She returned the
prince's gaze without wavering, though her hands shook pitifully. After
what seemed to her an interminable time, he spoke again.

"Perchance I am unwise in taking thee," he said. "Perchance I but give
thee opportunity to spit me on a dagger in my sleep."

The tears brimmed over her lashes this time.

"Thou dost slander me!" she exclaimed passionately.

"Then I do not understand thee, Masanath," he asserted.

"Of a surety," she declared, withdrawing a hand that she might dry the
evidences of her indignation from her cheeks. "Take the example home to
thyself! Thou hast been loved in thy time, and if ever there was
awakened any feeling in thy heart in response it was repugnance. What if
one of these women had it in her power to take thee against thy will? By
this time thou hadst been dead of thy frantic hate of her, if self-murder
had not been done!"

"Even so," he answered with a short laugh; "but I w