Page:The Downfall of the Gods (1911).pdf/46

 was convulsed with merriment, the slim figure shaking till all her bangles were chiming to her laugh. For a moment she could not find breath for speech.

"A Deva! I!" she gasped. "An Incarnation of the Shining Ones!"

There was bitter derision in her tones; and then, of a sudden, she was grave, and to her eyes and face that strange look of age returned.

"And yet " she said presently, as-though she were speaking, not to Chun, but to herself. "And yet who knows? Which of us can guess what we are, or whence we come, or why? I am that which I am; but even to me—to me, perhaps beyond the common lot-at times far-off voices have whispered. They make themselves heard in the stillness, in the hush of the night. They murmur of  I know not what—shadowy memories of lives long passed. Or are they only dreams—dear, impossible dreams?"

Chun rose quickly to his feet, towering above her in the half light. He knew now that his imagination had betrayed him, and that the girl at his side was no Deva, but a woman fashioned of warm flesh and blood. The reaction from the pitch of intensity to which a moment before his emotions had been tuned was abrupt and stunning as a blow; yet he was still exalted by the consciousness that at last his godhead had been proved. That knowledge warmed his heart, soothed and stimulated his soul, satisfied his every ambition, fulfilled his wildest hopes.