Page:Orczy--the gates of Kamt.djvu/231

 "Nay," she said sweetly, "I have naught to forgive, and revenge is in the hands of the gods." Then she added, "Farewell, oh, son of Ra!"

He bent his tall figure before her, then turned as if to go.

"Wilt thou not kiss me?" she said. "In Kamt a kiss denotes friendship, and if thou goest without a kiss, I shall fear that thou art my enemy."

"By all the gods of Kamt, I swear to thee that I am no enemy. But wilt pardon me if I do not give thee the kiss of friendship?"

"Why? A kiss is so soon given. It has so little meaning, for it is as swift as the flight of the bird through the air. Thou didst kiss me when thou camest, why wilt not kiss me now?"

"Because thou art beautiful above all things on earth," he said very quietly, "and because in my dazed mind there is still a glimmer of reason, which the perfume of thy hair would quickly dispel."

She blushed suddenly as if for the first time in her life she had been told that she was fair. How strange women are! When I told Neit-akrit that she was more beautiful than anything on earth, she smiled and looked pleased. When the Pharaoh fell half-fainting at her feet she became as white and rigid as a statue carved in stone. And now when Hugh Tankerville told her, with frigid calm, and I thought with a singular want of conviction, that she was beautiful, she suddenly became a thousand times more so, for she blushed and the heightened colour became her well.

"Farewell, then, oh, thou who art of the gods beloved!" she said once more very gently.

The next moment Hugh had gone and Neit-akrit had thrown herself on the couch in a passionate fit of weeping.