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 “I have come here every day. Every day I leave my garden of the Present, to ask the awful Sphinx for the solution of my problem.”

“What problem, Prince Eros?”

“The problem of my grief. For I am grieved about you, Psyche, because you would not follow me and stayed with your father. . . . Now I know why. You loved the Chimera. . . .”

She blushed, and hid her face in her hands.

“Who could see the Chimera and not love him more than me?” said Eros gently. “Who could love him, and not weep over him?” he whispered still more gently; but she did not hear him.

Then he spoke louder.

“Every morning, Psyche, I come to ask the Sphinx how long I must still suffer, and why I must suffer. And still much more, O Psyche, I ask the Sphinx, that I will not tell you now, because. . . .”

“Because. . . .?”

“Because it would perhaps pain you to hear the question of my heart. So I came now, O Psyche, and then I espied a brooklet meandering through the sand. I did not know it; I was thirsty, for I am always