"I wish thee happiness, my son," said Antefa, smiling, "and also great patience, because my beloved daughter, now twenty years old, is the first exquisite in Thebes, and has had her will always. By the gods, I tell thee that my command over Thebes always ends at the gate of her garden. And I fear that thy military command will go no farther."
Next the noble Antefa invited his guests to a splendid banquet, in the course of which the beautiful Hebron showed herself with a great retinue of damsels.
In the dining-hall were numbers of small tables for two or four persons, also a larger table, on a loftier place, for the pharaoh. To show honor to Antefa and his favorite, Tutmosis, Ramses approached Hebron and invited her to his table.
The young lady was really beautiful, and as it seemed had experience, a thing not exceptional in Egypt. Ramses soon noticed that the betrothed turned no attention whatever toward Tutmosis, but to make up for this she turned eloquent glances toward him, the pharaoh.
That also was no wonder in Egypt.
When the guests had taken their places, when music sounded and female dancers began to bring fruit and wine to the tables, Ramses said to Hebron,
"The longer I look at thee, the more I am astonished. Were some stranger to enter he might consider thee a high priestess or a goddess, but never a woman at the time of happy betrothal."
"I am happy," said she, "at this moment, though not because of betrothal."
"How is that?" interrupted the pharaoh.
"Marriage does not entice me, and surely I should rather be the high priestess of Isis than be married."