"The Well of Palms!" she repeated, her woman's wit marking his abstraction, and assigning to it a woman's cause. "It is the sweetest water in all the land of Shinar. It would taste none the worse when drawn for you by the daughter of Arbaces."
"Ishtar!" he exclaimed, while his whole face brightened. "You have seen her—you know her! Is she not beautiful?"
Kalmim laughed scornfully.
"Beautiful!" she echoed, "with a poor thin face, white as ivory, and solemn as Dagon's yonder, in the fishing-temple! Well, well! then she is beautiful, if you like; and we shall learn next that she is good as well as fair!"
"What do you mean?" he asked, stopping short to look his companion in the face.
Kalmim burst into another laugh.
"I mean nothing, innocent youth!—for strangely innocent you are, though the beard is budding on your chin. And a modest maiden means nothing, I suppose, who frequents the well at which every traveller from the desert must needs halt—who draws water for warriors to drink, and unveils for a stranger she never saw before! Yes, I am unveiled too, I know; but it is different here. The queen's palace has its privileges; and, believe me, they are sometimes sadly abused!"
"Not by one who has just left the light of her presence," answered Sarchedon, angered to the core, though he scarce knew why. "I have never been taught to offend against the majesty of a king's house—to believe a fenced city taken because a bank is cast against it, nor a woman my lawful prize because she lifts her veil."
Next to making love, Kalmim enjoyed quarrelling. To tease, irritate, and perplex a man, was sport only second to that of seeing him at her feet. She clapped her hands mischievously, and exclaimed,
"You are bewitched, my lord! Confess, now. She unveiled to turn her eyes on you before you got to horse and went your way. Is it possible you do not know who and what she is?"