It was done.  She had acknowledged the betrothal and knelt to her lord.  Somewhere in that assembly Hotep had seen it, and she wondered numbly if he understood why she had submitted; wondered if she had saved him; wondered if she could endure for the long life they must spend under the same roof; wondered if the gods would take pity on her and kill her very soon.

By this time, Rameses had raised her.  He lifted the badge of princehood from his forehead, shortened the fillet from which it hung, so that it would fit her small head and set it on her brow.

The great palace shook with the acclaim of the courtiers.  Organ-throated trumpets were blown; the clang of crossed arms, and sound of beaten shields arose from all parts of the king’s house; all the ancients’ manifestations of joy were made,—­and the pair that had brought it forth looked upon each other.

Masanath was trembling, and filled with a great desire to cry out.  All this was manifest on her small, white face.  The light had died in the prince’s eyes, the exultation was gone from his countenance.  He knew what thoughts were uppermost in the mind of Masanath, and the tyrant had spoken truly to her long ago, when he said his heart might be hurt.  His brow contracted with an expression of actual pain and he turned with a fierce movement as if to command the rejoicings to be still.  But a thought deterred him and taking Masanath’s hand he led her down the hall through the bending ranks of purple-wearing Egyptians to the great portals of the hall.  There, he gave her into the hands of a troop of court-ladies, lithe as leopards and gorgeous as butterflies, who led her with many sinuous obeisances to her apartments.  She had not far to go.  The suite given over to the new crown princess was within the wing of the palace in which the royal family lived.  Masanath noted with a little trepidation that her door was very near to the portals over which was the winged sun, carven and portentous.  Here were the chambers of her lord, the heir.

Within her own apartments, she was attended multitudinously.  Ladies-in-waiting bent at her elbow; soft-fingered daughters of nobility habited her in purple-edged robes; flitting apparitions, in a distant chamber, glimpsed through a vista, laid a table of viands for her, to which she was led with many soft flatteries; her every wish was anticipated; all her trepidation conspicuously overlooked; her rank religiously observed in all speech and behavior.  And of all her retinue, she was the least complacent.

After her sumptuous meal, she was informed that a member of her private train had come to Tanis from Memphis, ten days agone, in a state of great concern and had awaited all that time in the palace till she should arrive.  Now that she had come, the servitor insisted on seeing the princess and would not be denied.  Troubled and wondering, Masanath ordered that he be brought.  In a few minutes, Pepi stood before her.  The taciturn servant was visibly frightened.