Never could extremes have been greater. But Kenkenes would not have given any of these obstacles a moment's consideration had not the weight of their neglect fallen on the shoulders of Rachel. If he had been a sovereign he could have taken her freely, and purple-wearing Egypt would have kissed her sandal; but he occupied a place that could provide with honor only him who was born to it.
To lift Rachel to that position would be to expose her to the affronts of an undemocratic society. On the other hand he might sacrifice name and station and go down to her; but he was not to be judged harshly because he hesitated at this step.
Rachel had given him no sign of preference beyond a pretty fellowship. In the beginning this realization had hurt him, but as he tossed night after night, troubled beyond expression, he remembered this thing with some melancholy comfort. It was a sorry solution of his problem to feel that he was unloved, and even while he recognized its efficacy, he prayed that it might not be so.
His heavy heart did not retard the progress of his statue or make its beauty indifferent. The more he suffered the greater the passion in the face. He labored daily and tirelessly.
But day by day he looked, unseen, on his love in the valley, and the oftener he looked the more irresolute he grew. The conflict between his heart and his reason was gradually shifting in favor of his love.
His longing, as it continued to crave, grew from hunger to starving, and though his reason pointed to disastrous results, his heart justified itself in the blind cry, "Rachel, Rachel!"
He had endured a month before his fortitude succumbed entirely. Once near sunset, as Rachel was proceeding toward the camp from some helpful mission to the quarries, she caught the fragments of a song, so distantly and absently sung that she could not locate it. There were singers among the Israelites, but they sang with wild exultation and more care for the sense than the melody. They had cultivated the chant and forgotten the lyric, because they had more heart for prophecy than passion. Rachel had revered her people's song, but there was something in this half-heard music that touched her youth and her love of life. She stopped to hear it well.
It had all the power and profundity of the male voice, but it was as subdued, as flawless and sympathetic as a distant, deep-toned bell. There was not even a breath of effort in it, nor an insincere expression, and it pursued a theme of little range and much simplicity. The singer sang as spontaneously as a bird sings. She did not catch the words, but something in the fervor of the music told her it was a song of love—and a song of love unsatisfied. There was a pathos in it that touched the fountain of her tears and awoke to willingness that impulse in her womanhood that longs to comfort.
As she stood in an attitude of rapt attention. Kenkenes rounded a curve in the valley just ahead of her. The song died suddenly on his lips and the color deepened in his cheeks.
"Fie!" he exclaimed. "Here thou art, O Athor, catching me in the imperfection of my practice. Now will the keen edge of their perfect beauty be dulled upon thine ear when I come to lift my tuneful devotions to thee."