ed.

I do not know what the nose or the lips were like; in fact, all that I
can remember with distinctness is the splendour of the eyes, of which
I had caught some hint through her veil on the previous night. Oh, they
were wondrous, those eyes, but I cannot tell their colour save that the
groundwork of them was black. Moreover they seemed to be more than eyes
as we understand them. They were indeed windows of the soul, out of
which looked thought and majesty and infinite wisdom, mixed with all the
allurements and the mystery that we are accustomed to see or to imagine
in woman.

Here let me say something at once. If this marvellous creature expected
that the revelation of her splendour was going to make me her slave; to
cause me to fall in love with her, as it is called, well, she must have
been disappointed, for it had no such effect. It frightened and in a
sense humbled me, that is all, for I felt myself to be in the presence
of something that was not human, something alien to me as a man, which I
could fear and even adore as humanity would adore that which is Divine,
but with which I had no desire to mix. Moreover, was it divine, or was
it something very different? I did not know, I only knew that it was not
for me; as soon should I have thought of asking for a star to set within
my lantern.

I think that she felt this, felt that her stroke had missed, as the
French say, that is if she meant to strike at all at this moment.
Of this I am not certain, for it was in a changed voice, one with a
suspicion of chill in it that she said with a little laugh,

"Do you admit now, Allan, that a woman may be old and still remain fair
and unwrinkled?"

"I admit," I answered, although I was trembling so much that I could
hardly speak with steadiness, "that a woman may be splendid and lovely
beyond anything that the mind of man can conceive, whatever her age, of
which I know nothing. I would add this, Ayesha, that I thank you very
much for having revealed to me the glory that is hid beneath your veil."

"Why?" she asked, and I thought that I detected curiosity in her
question.

"For this reason, Ayesha. Now there is no fear of my troubling you in
such a fashion as you seemed to dread a little while ago. As soon would
a man desire to court the moon sailing in her silver loveliness through
heaven."

"The moon! It is strange that you should compare me to the moon," she
said musingly. "Do you know that the moon was a great god