She surveyed herself with a swift glance in a plate of polished silver which was her mirror, and then, darting out of her door, ran down the corridor as though she would outstrip repentance before it overtook her.

The flight was not long, but she had lost her composure before she started.  Outside her doors, she trembled as if unprotected.  Soldiers of the royal guard paced along the hall before her chambers.  The lamps that burned there were of gold; the drapings were of purple wrought with the royal symbols; the asp supported the censers; the head of Athor surmounted the columns.  She was a dweller of the royal house.  Far, far away from her were the unimperial quarters in which, once, she would have lived.  There was her father—­there was Hotep—­

She came upon him whom she sought.  He was on the point of entering his apartments.  He paused with his hands on the curtains and waited for her.

“A word with thee, my Lord,” she panted, chiefly from trepidation.

“I have come to expect no more than a word from thee,” he said.

The answer would have sent her away in dudgeon, under any other circumstances, but her pride could not stand in the way of this very pressing duty.

“A boon,” she said, choking back her resentment.

“A boon!  Thou wouldst ask a boon of me!  Nay, I will not promise, for it may be thou comest to ask thy freedom, and that I will not grant for spleen.”

Still she curbed herself.  “Nay, O Prince; I am come to ask naught of thee which—­a wife—­may not justly ask of—­her—­lord.”

He left the curtain and came close to her.  “Had the words come smoothly over thy lips, they would have meant any wife—­any husband.  But thy very faltering names thee and me.  What is the boon that thou mayest justly ask of me?”

“My father—.”

“Hold!  There, too, I make a restriction.  Already have I suffered thy father sufficiently.”

Tears leaped into her insulted eyes, and in the bright light, shining from a lamp above her head, her emotion was very apparent.

“Thou hast begun well in thy siege of my heart, Rameses,” she said.  “I am like to love thee, if thou dost woo me with affronts!”

“I am as like to win thee with rough words as I am with soft speeches.  I had thought thee above pretense, Masanath.”

“I pretend not,” she cried, stamping her foot.  “And if thou wouldst know how I esteem thee, I can tell thee most truthfully.”

He laughed and caught her hands.  “Nay, save thy judgment.  Thou hast a long life with me before thee, and the minds of women can change in the blink of an eye.  Furthermore, I love thee none the less because thou art so untamed.  Thou art the world I would subdue.  So thou dost not give allegiance to another conqueror, I shall not grieve over thy rebellion.  Is there another?” he asked.

“I would liefer wed with well-nigh any other man in Egypt than with thee, Rameses,” she replied deliberately.