“Yet I accept, O Prince.  As for Nehesi I fear him not at all, since at the worst I can write a story about him at which the world will laugh, and rather than that he will pay me my salary.”

“You have more wisdom than I thought, Ana.  It never came into my mind to put Nehesi in a story, though it is true I tell tales about him which is much the same thing.”

He bend forward, leaning his head upon his hand, and ceasing from his bantering tone, looked me in the eyes and asked: 

“Why do you accept?  Let me think now.  It is not because you care for wealth if that is to be won here; nor for the pomp and show of courts; nor for the company of the great who really are so small.  For all these things you, Ana, have no craving if I read your heart aright, you who are an artist, nothing less and nothing more.  Tell me, then, why will you, a free man who can earn your living, linger round a throne and set your neck beneath the heel of princes to be crushed into the common mould of servitors and King’s Companions and Bearers of the Footstool?”

“I will tell you, Prince.  First, because thrones make history, as history makes thrones, and I think that great events are on foot in Egypt in which I would have my share.  Secondly, because the gods bring gifts to men only once or twice in their lives and to refuse them is to offend the gods who gave them those lives to use to ends of which we know nothing.  And thirdly”—­here I hesitated.

“And thirdly—­out with the thirdly for, doubtless, it is the real reason.”

“And thirdly, O Prince—­well, the word sounds strangely upon a man’s lips—­but thirdly because I love you.  From the moment that my eyes fell upon your face I loved you as I never loved any other man—­not even my father.  I know not why.  Certainly it is not because you are a prince.”

When he heard these words Seti sat brooding and so silent that, fearing lest I, a humble scribe, had been too bold, I added hastily: 

“Let your Highness pardon his servant for his presumptuous words.  It was his servant’s heart that spoke and not his lips.”

He lifted his hand and I stopped.

“Ana, my twin in Ra,” he said, “do you know that I never had a friend?”

“A prince who has no friend!”

“Never, none.  Now I begin to think that I have found one.  The thought is strange and warms me.  Do you know also that when my eyes fell upon your face I loved you also, the gods know why.  It was as though I had found one who was dear to me thousands of years ago but whom I had lost and forgotten.  Perhaps this is but foolishness, or perhaps here we have the shadow of something great and beautiful which dwells elsewhere, in the place we call the Kingdom of Osiris, beyond the grave, Ana.”

“Such thoughts have come to me at times, Prince.  I mean that all we see is shadow; that we ourselves are shadows and that the realities who cast them live in a different home which is lit by some spirit sun that never sets.”