All the attraction of her gorgeous habiliments, her warm assurance and her inceptive tenderness detached themselves from the general fusion and became distinct.  Her beauty, her fervor, her audacity, were not unusually pronounced on this occasion, but the spell for Kenkenes was broken and the inner working’s were open to him.  Different indeed was the picture that rose before his mind—­a picture of a fair face, wondrously and spiritually beautiful; of the quick blush and sweet dignity and unapproachable womanhood.  His eyes fell and for a moment his lids were unsteady, but the color surged back into his cheeks and his lips tightened.

He took Io’s hands, which were clasped across his knee, and rising, gave the chair to Ta-meri.  He found a taboret for himself, and as he put it down at her feet, he saw Nechutes fling himself into a chair and scowl blackly at the nomarch’s daughter.  Kenkenes sighed and interested himself in the babble that went on about him.

The first word he distinguished was the name of Har-hat, pronounced in clear tones.  Menes, who sat next to Kenkenes, put out his foot and trod on the speaker’s toes.  The man was Siptah.

“Choke before thou utterest that name again,” the captain said in a whisper, “else thou wilt have Rameses abusing Har-hat before his daughter.”

“What matters it to me, his temper or her hurt?” Siptah snarled.

“Churl!” responded Menes, amiably.

“What is amiss between the heir and the fan-bearer?” Kenkenes asked.

“Everything!  Rameses fairly suffocates in the presence of the new adviser.  The Pharaoh is sadly torn between the twain.  He worships Rameses and, body of Osiris! how he loves Har-hat!  But sometime the council chamber with the trio therein will fall—­the walls outward, the roof, up—­mark me!”

Again, clear and with offensive emphasis, Siptah’s voice was heard disputing, in the general babble.

“Magnify the cowardice of the Rebu if you will, but it was Har-hat who made them afraid,” he was saying.

The slow eyes of Rameses turned in the direction of the tacit challenge.  Menes’ black brows knitted at Siptah, but Kenkenes came to the rescue.  A lyre, the inevitable instrument of ancient revels, was near him and he caught it up, sweeping his fingers strongly across the strings.

A momentary silence fell, broken at once by the applause of the peace-loving, who cried, “Sing for us, Kenkenes!”

He shook his head, smiling.  “I did but test the harmony of the strings; harmony is grateful to mine ear.”

Menes’ lips twitched.  “If harmony is here,” he said with meaning, “you will find it in the instrument.”

Again, a voice from the general conversation broke in—­this time from Rameses.

“Kenkenes hath outlasted an army of other singers.  I knew him as such when mine uncles yet lived and my father was many moves from the throne.  It was while we dwelt unroyally here in Memphis.  They made thee sing in the temple, Kenkenes.  Dost thou remember?”