imperfect, not my flesh, as I can prove if you should wish."

Thinking it better not to enter on a discussion as to Ayesha's shoulder,
I remained silent and she went on.

"I dwelt in Egypt also, and there, to be rid of men who wearied me with
their sighs and importunities, also to acquire more wisdom of which she
was the mistress, I entered the service of the goddess Isis, Queen
of Heaven, vowing to remain virgin for ever. Soon I became her
high-priestess and in her most sacred shrines upon the Nile, I communed
with the goddess and shared her power, since from me her daughter, she
withheld none of her secrets. So it came about that though Pharaohs held
the sceptre, it was I who ruled Egypt and brought it and Sidon to their
fall, it matters not how or why, as it was fated that I must do. Yes,
kings would come to seek counsel from me where I sat throned, dressed in
the garb of Isis and breathing out her power. Yet, my task accomplished,
of it all I grew weary, as men will surely do of the heavens that they
preach, should they chance to find them."

I wondered what this "task" might be, but only asked, "Why?"

"Because in their pictured heaven all things lie to their hands and man,
being man, cannot be happy without struggle, and woman, being woman,
without victory over others. What is cheaply bought, or given, has no
value, Allan; to be enjoyed, it must first be won. But I bade you not to
break my thought."

I asked pardon and she went on,

"Then it was that the shadow of the curse of Aphrodite fell upon me,
yes, and of the curse of Isis also, so that these twin maledictions have
made me what I am, a lost soul dwelling in the wilderness waiting the
fulfilment of a fate whereof I know not the end. For though I have all
wisdom, all knowledge of the Past and much power together with the gift
of life and beauty, the future is as dark to me as night without its
moon and stars.

"Hearken, this chanced to me. Though it be to my shame I tell it you
that all may be clear. At a temple of Isis on the Nile where I ruled,
there was a certain priest, a Greek by birth, vowed like myself to the
service of the goddess and therefore to wed none but her, the goddess
herself--that is, in the spirit. He was named Kallikrates, a man of
courage and of beauty, such an one as those Greeks carved in the statues
of their god Apollo. Never, I think, was a man more beautiful in face
and form, though in soul he was not great, as often happens t