She stopped in her walk and looked him full in the face.
“I never heard,” she said, “that either the Jews or the Egyptians, being instructed, were blind to the reading of an allegory. But, Prince, if you cannot read this one it is not for me, who am but a woman, to set it out to you.”
Just then their glances met, and in the clear moonlight Aziel saw a wave of doubt sweep over his companion’s dark and beautiful eyes, and a faint flush appear upon her brow. He saw, and something stirred at his heart that till this hour he had never felt, something which even now he knew it would trouble him greatly to escape.
“Tell me, lady,” he asked, his voice sinking almost to a whisper, “in this fable of yours am I even for an hour deemed worthy to play the part of that immortal love embodied which you sought so earnestly a while ago?”
“Immortal love, Prince,” she answered, in a new voice, a voice low and deep, “is not for one hour, but for all hours that are and are to be. You, and you alone, can know if you would dare to play such a part as this—even in a fable.”
“Perchance, lady, there lives a woman for whom it might be dared.”
“Prince, no such woman lives, since immortal love must deal, not with the flesh, but with the spirit. If a spirit worthy to be thus loved and worshipped now wanders in earthly shape upon the world, seeking its counterpart and its completion, I cannot tell. Yet were it so, and should they chance to meet, it might be happy for such brave spirits, for then the answer to the great riddle would be theirs.”
Wondering what this riddle might be, Aziel bent towards her to reply, when suddenly round a bend in the path but a few paces from them came a body of soldiers and attendants, headed by a man clad in a white robe and walking with a staff. This man was grey-headed and keen-eyed, thin in face and ascetic in appearance, with a brow of power and a bearing of dignity. At the sight of the pair he halted, looking at them in question, and with disapproval.
“Our search is ended,” he said in Hebrew, “for here is he whom we seek, and alone with him a heathen woman, robed like a priestess of the Groves.”
“Whom do you seek, Issachar?” asked Aziel hurriedly, for the sudden appearance of the Levite disturbed him.