Page:Ayesha, the return of She (IA cu31924013476175).pdf/261

Rh flowers and ferns, was a bench near to the banks of a little stream, on which we seated ourselves.

What have you to say, Horace? asked Leo laying his hand upon my arm.

Say? I answered. That things have come about most marvellously; that we have dreamed aright and laboured not in vain; that you are the most fortunate of men and should be the most happy.

He looked at me somewhat strangely, and answered—

Yes, of course; she is lovely, is she not—but, and his voice dropped to its lowest whisper, I wish, Horace, that Ayesha were a little more human, even as human as she was in the Caves of Kôr. I don't think she is quite flesh and blood, I felt it when she kissed me—if you can call it a kiss—for she barely touched my hair. Indeed how can she be who changed thus in an hour? Flesh and blood are not born of flame, Horace.

Are you sure that she was so born? I asked. Like the visions on the fire, may not that hideous shape have been but an illusion of our minds? May she not be still the same Ayesha whom we knew in Kôr, not re-born, but wafted hither by some mysterious agency?

Perhaps. Horace, we do not know—I think that we shall never know. But I admit that to me the thing is terrifying. I am drawn to her by an infinite attraction, her eyes set my blood on fire, the touch of her hand is as that of a wand of madness laid upon my brain. And yet between us there is some wall, invisible, still present. Or perhaps it is only fancy. But, Horace, I think that she is afraid of Atene. Why, in the old days the Khania would have been dead and forgotten in an hour—you remember Ustane?

Perhaps she may have grown more gentle, Leo, who, like ourselves, has learned hard lessons.

Yes, he answered, I hope that is so. At any rate she has grown more divine—only, Horace, what kind of a husband shall I be for that bright being, if ever I get so far?