Ayesha, I ask of
thee thyself--not at some distant time when I have been bathed in a
mysterious fire, but now, now this night."
She shrank back from him a little, as though dismayed.
"Surely," she said slowly, "I am like that foolish philosopher who,
walking abroad to read the destinies of nations in the stars, fell down
a pitfall dug by idle children and broke his bones and perished there.
Never did I guess that with all these glories stretched before thee
like mountain top on glittering mountain top, making a stairway for thy
mortal feet to the very dome of heaven, thou wouldst still clutch at thy
native earth and seek of it--but the common boon of woman's love.
"Oh! Leo, I thought that thy soul was set upon nobler aims, that thou
wouldst pray me for wider powers, for a more vast dominion; that as
though they were but yonder fallen door of wood and iron, I should break
for thee the bars of Hades, and like the Eurydice of old fable draw thee
living down the steeps of Death, or throne thee midst the fires of the
furthest sun to watch its subject worlds at play.
"Or I thought that thou wouldst bid me reveal what no woman ever told,
the bitter, naked truth--all my sins and sorrows, all the wandering
fancies of my fickle thought; even what thou knowest not and perchance
ne'er shalt know, _who I am and whence I came_, and how to thy charmed
eyes I seemed to change from foul to fair, and what is the purpose of
my love for thee, and what the meaning of that tale of an angry
goddess--who never was except in dreams.
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