She raised her veil to look at him with startled eyes. The glimpse of her face, for ever a delight and an astonishment to him because of its extraordinary loveliness, swept him out of the half-serious air into which he had fallen. He stopped and looked at her with pleased, boyish, happy eyes.
"Aurora!" he said softly. "I see now why day comes gradually. Mankind would die of excitement if the dawn were unveiled to them like this suddenly every morning!"
She released the veil hurriedly, but before it fell he put out a hand, caught it and tossed it back over her head.
"Be consistent with your part," he said, still smiling. "No man ever saw day cancel her dawn and live."
It was pleasant, this sweet possession and command. How much like an overgrown boy he had become, since she had wakened to find herself in his power that morning in the hills! The harshness and inflexibility had left his atmosphere entirely. She was only afraid of him now because he had refused to be dismissed. But she drew down the veil.
"I, too, expect a king," she said in a lowered tone. "A conqueror and a redeemer."
"The Messiah?" he said, and she knew by the inflection that he had not meant that King when he had spoken.
He noted that her hair was coiled upon her head when he threw back her veil and he turned to that at once.
"You wear your hair in a fashion," he said, "that once meant that which men dislike to discover of a woman whom they greatly admire. I hope it is no longer significant."
"I go," she said after a silence, "to join my husband in Jerusalem."