"This is but the beginning," he said in a low voice, "and I have won.

The end shall be the same. I am a lovable lover, am I not, Masanath?

Am I not good to look upon? Dost thou know a more princely prince, and is my father more of a king than I shall be? Where do I fail thee in thy little ideals? Am I harsh? Aye, but I am a king. Am I rough-spoken? Aye, because most of the world deserve it. Thou hast never felt the sting of my tongue, and never shalt thou unless thou breakest my heart. I have much to give thee; not any other monarch hath so much as I to give his queen. And yet I ask only thy love in return."

This was earnest wooing, which contained nothing that she might flout.

So she strained away from him and sulked. Again he laughed.

"Khem and Athor and Besa have combed my heart and created a being of the desires they found therein! O, thou art mine, for the G.o.ds ordained it so." Again he kissed her, holding her in spite of her efforts to get away.

"There! carry thy hate of me only to the edge of sleep and dream sweetly of me."

He released her and continued down the hall.

As he turned out of the smaller pa.s.sage into the larger corridor, Ta-user stepped forth from the shadow of a pillar. The huge column dwarfed her into tininess. The hall was but dimly lighted by a single lamp and that flared above her head.

Rameses paused, for she stood in his path.

"Not yet gone to thy rest?" he asked.

"Rest!" she said scornfully. "Gone to a night-long frenzy of relentless consciousness--weary tossing, wasted prayers. I have not rested since I left the Hak-heb."

Her voice sounded hollow in the great empty hall.

"So? Thou art ready for the care of the physicians by this, then, O my Sister."

"I am not thy sister."

"What! Hast quarreled with the gentle Seti?"

"Rameses, do not mock me. Seti does not even stir my pulses. He could not rob me of my peace."

"What temperate love! Mine makes my temples crack and fills mine hours with sweet distress."

Ta-user looked at him for a moment, then raising her hands, caught the folds of his robe over his breast.

"Rameses, how far wilt thou go in this trifling with the Lady Masanath?"

"To the marrying priests." Without looking at her, he loosed her hands, swung them idly and let them go.

"She does not love thee," she said after a little silence.

"Thy news is old. She told me that not a moment since."

Ta-user drew a freer breath. "Thou wilt not wed her, then."

"That I will. I have vowed it. Go, Ta-user, the hour is late. Have thy woman stir a potion for thee, and sleep. I would to mine own dreams. They yield me what the day denies."

"Stay, Rameses," she urged, catching at his robes once more. "I would have thee know something. But am I to tell thee in words what I would have thee know? Surely I have not let slip a single chance to show thee by token. Art thou stubborn or blind, that thou dost not pity me and spare me the avowal?"

Rameses looked down at her upturned face without a softening line on his pallid countenance.

"Ta-user," he said deliberately, "had I been mummied and entombed I should have known thine intent. I marvel that thou couldst think I had not seen. Now, hast thou not guessed my mind by this? Have I not been sufficiently explicit? Must I, too, lay bare my heart in words?"

She did not speak for a moment. Then she said eagerly:

"Let not thy jealousy trouble thee concerning Seti--he is naught to me--I love him not--a boy, no more."

"Seti!" he exclaimed contemptuously. "I have no feeling against Seti save for his unfealty to the little child who loves him,--whose heart thou hast most deliberately broken."

"Not so," she declared vehemently. "I can not help the boy's attachment to me. She is a child, as thou hast said, and is easily comforted. Not so with maturer hearts like mine."

She put her arms about his neck, and flinging her head back, gazed at him with a heavy eye.

"O, wilt thou put me aside for Masanath? What is her little dark beauty compared to mine? How can she, who is not even a stately subject, be a stately queen? Wilt thou set the crown upon her unregal head, invest her with the royal robes, and yield thy homage to a scowl and a bitter word? And me, in whom there is no drop of unroyal blood, in whom there is all the pa.s.sion of the southlands and all the fidelity of the north, thou wilt humiliate. The G.o.ds made me for thee--schooled me for thy needs and shifted the nation's history so that thou shouldst have need of me. Look upon me, Rameses. Why wilt thou thrust me aside?"

She was not dealing with Seti, or Siptah, or any other whom she had bewitched. There was no spell in the topaz eyes for Rameses. If her sorcery affected him at all, it won no more than a cursory interest in her next move.

"The night is too short to recount my reasons," he replied calmly, as he put her arms away. "But I might point out the snarling cur, Siptah, for one, and a few other comely lords of Egypt."

"What hast thou done in thy life?" she cried. "I am no more wicked than thou; thou hast found delight in others beside whom I am all innocence."

"It may be. Who knows but there is somewhat of the vulture-nostril in man, tickled with a vague taint? But, even then, the sense is fleeting, more or less as the natures of men vary. A man hath his better moments, and how shall they be entirely pure in the presence of shame? Nay, I would not mate and live for ever with mine own sins."

"Then as thou dost permit her spotlessness to cover her hate, let my love for thee hide my sins. From the first I have loved thee unasked.

She is all unwon."

"Thou hast said it. She is unwon. But doth the lion prey upon the carca.s.s? Nay. His kill must be fresh and slain by his own might.

Thou didst stultify thyself by thine instant acquiescence. Come, let us make an end to this. The more said the more thou shalt have of which to accuse thyself hereafter."

But she dropped before him, her white robes c.u.mbering his path, her arms clasping his knees.

"What more have I to do of which to accuse myself, O Rameses? Egypt knows why I came to court. Egypt will know why I shall leave it. What have I not offered and what hast thou given me? Where shall I find that refuge from the pitying smile of the nation? Spare my womanhood--"

"Ah, fie upon thy pretense, Ta-user! Art thou not shrewd enough to know how well I understand thee? Thou dost not love me. No woman who loves pleads beyond the first rebuff. Love is full of dudgeon. Thou dost betray thyself in thy very insistence. Thou beggest for the crown I shall wear, and if I were over-thrown to-morrow thou wouldst kneel likewise to mine enemy. Thou hast no womanhood to lose in Egypt's sight. As thy caprice turned from Siptah to me, let it return thee to Siptah once again. And if thy heart doth in truth wince with jealousy, think on Io."

He undid her arms, flung her from him and disappeared into the dark.

CHAPTER XXVI

FURTHER DIPLOMACY

Masanath, suffocating with wrath and rebellion and overpowered with an exaggerated appreciation of her shame, tumbled down in the shadows of the narrow pa.s.sage and wrapped her mantle around her head.

When she had wept till the creamy linen over her small face was wet and her throat hurt under the strain of angry sobs, and until she was sure that Rameses was gone, she picked herself up and went cautiously to the end of the pa.s.sage to reconnoiter.

The prince stood under the single lamp in the great corridor, between her and the refuge of her chamber. Another was close to him, her hands upon his shoulders.