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154  man? Forgive me therefore if I cannot believe what I know to be untrue.

Now I thought that she would be very angry and was sorry that I had spoken. But as it happened she was not.

You must have courage to give me the lie so boldly—and I like courage, she said, who have been cringed to for so long. Indeed, I know that you are brave, who have heard how you bore yourself in the fight yesterday, and much else about you. I think that we shall be friends, but—seek no more.

What else should I seek, O Ayesha? I asked innocently.

Now you are lying again, she said, who know well that no man who is a man sees a woman who is beautiful and pleases him, without wondering whether, should he desire it, she could come to love him, that is, if she be young.

Which at least is not possible if she has lived two thousand years. Then naturally she would prefer to wear a veil, I said boldly, seeking to avoid the argument into which I saw she wished to drag me.

Ah! she answered, the little yellow man who is named Light-in-Darkness put that thought into your heart, I think. Oh, do not trouble as to how I know it, who have many spies here, as he guessed well enough. So a woman who has lived two thousand years must be hideous and wrinkled, must she? The stamp of youth and loveliness must long have fled from her; of that you, the wise man, are sure. Very well. Now you tempt me to do what I had determined I would not do and you shall pluck the fruit of that tree of curiosity which grows so fast within you. Look, O Allan, and say whether I am old and hideous, even though I have lived two thousand years upon the earth and mayhap many more.

Then she lifted her hands and did something to her veil, so that for a moment—only one moment—her face was revealed, after which the veil fell into its place.

I looked, I saw, and if that chair had lacked a back I believe that I should have fallen out of it to the ground. As for what I saw—well, it cannot be described, at any rate by me, except perhaps as a flash of glory.

Every man has dreamed of perfect beauty, basing his ideas of it perhaps on that of some woman he has met who chanced to take his fancy, with a few accessories from splendid pictures or Greek statues thrown in, plus a garnishment of the