I asked her why, seeing that though a long-lived one, she was still a woman, whereon her face assumed a calm but terrifying smile, and she answered—­“Art so sure, my Holly?  Tell me, do your women wear such jewels as that set upon my brow?” and she pointed to the faint but lambent light which glowed about her forehead.

More, she began slowly to stroke her abundant hair, then her breast and body.  Wherever her fingers passed the mystic light was born, until in that darkened room—­for the dusk was gathering—­she shimmered from head to foot like the water of a phosphorescent sea, a being glorious yet fearful to behold.  Then she waved her hand, and, save for the gentle radiance on her brow, became as she had been.

“Art so sure, my Holly?” Ayesha repeated.  “Nay, shrink not; that flame will not burn thee.  Mayhap thou didst but imagine it, as I have noted thou dost imagine many things; for surely no woman could clothe herself in light and live, nor has so much as the smell of fire passed upon my garments.”

Then at length my patience was outworn, and I grew angry.

“I am sure of nothing, Ayesha,” I answered, “except that thou wilt make us mad with all these tricks and changes.  Say, art thou a spirit then?”

“We are all spirits,” she said reflectively, “and I, perhaps, more than some.  Who can be certain?”

“Not I,” I answered.  “Yet I implore, woman or spirit, tell me one thing.  Tell me the truth.  In the beginning what wast thou to Leo, and what was he to thee?”

She looked at me very solemnly and answered—­“Does my memory deceive me, Holly, or is it written in the first book of the Law of the Hebrews, which once I used to study, that the sons of Heaven came down to the daughters of men, and found that they were fair?”

“It is so written,” I answered.

“Then, Holly, might it not have chanced that once a daughter of Heaven came down to a man of Earth and loved him well?  Might it not chance that for her great sin, she, this high, fallen star, who had befouled her immortal state for him, was doomed to suffer till at length his love, made divine by pain and faithful even to a memory, was permitted to redeem her?”

Now at length I saw light and sprang up eagerly, but in a cold voice she added: 

“Nay, Holly, cease to question me, for there are things of which I can but speak to thee in figures and in parables, not to mock and bewilder thee, but because I must.  Interpret them as thou wilt.  Still, Atene thought me no mortal, since she told us that man and spirit may not mate; and there are matters in which I let her judgment weigh with me, as without doubt now, as in other lives, she and that old Shaman, her uncle, have wisdom, aye, and foresight.  So bid my lord press me no more to wed him, for it gives me pain to say him nay—­ah! thou knowest not how much.

“Moreover, I will declare myself to thee, old friend; whatever else I be, at least I am too womanly to listen to the pleadings of my best beloved and not myself be moved.  See, I have set a curb upon desire and drawn it until my heart bleeds; but if he pursues me with continual words and looks of burning love, who knoweth but that I shall kindle in his flame and throw the reins of reason to the winds?