ove and triumph. As Fate,
the god of my people, sets his foot upon the sun, so I set my foot upon
Fate, and thence, like a swimmer from a rock, leap into the waters of
Immortality."

I looked at her whose presence, as happened from time to time, had grown
majestic beyond that of woman; I studied her deep eyes which were full
of lights, not of this world, and I grew afraid.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Yva, you talk like one who has finished
with life."

"It passes," she answered quickly. "Life passes like breath fading from
a mirror. So should all talk who breathe beneath the sun."

"Yes, Yva, but if you went and left me still breathing on that mocking
glass--"

"If so, what of it? Will not your breath fade also and join mine where
all vapours go? Or if it were yours that faded and mine that remained
for some few hours, is it not the same? I think, Humphrey, that already
you have seen a beloved breath melt from the glass of life," she added,
looking at me earnestly.

I bowed my head and answered:

"Yes, and therefore I am ashamed."

"Oh! why should you be ashamed, Humphrey, who are not sure but that
two breaths may yet be one breath? How do you know that there is a
difference between them?"

"You drive me mad, Yva. I cannot understand."

"Nor can I altogether, Humphrey. Why should I, seeing that I am no
more than woman, as you are no more than man? I would always have
you remember, Humphrey, that I am no spirit or sorceress, but just a
woman--like her you lost."

I looked at her doubtfully and answered:

"Women do not sleep for two hundred thousand years. Women do not take
dream journeys to the stars. Women do not make the dead past live again
before the watcher's eyes. Their hair does not glimmer in the dusk nor
do their bodies gleam, nor have they such strength of soul or eyes so
wonderful, or loveliness so great."

These words appeared to distress her who, as it seemed to me, was above
all things anxious to prove herself woman and no more.

"All these qualities are nothing, Humphrey," she cried. "As for the
beauty, such as it is, it comes to me with my blood, and with it the
glitter of my hair which is the heritage of those who for generations
have drunk of the Life-water. My mother was lovelier than I, as was her
mother, or so I have heard, since only the fairest were the wives of
the Kings of the Children of Wisdom. For the rest, such arts as I have
spring not from magic, but from knowledge whi