“You must not name me Highness, Lady. I have no longer any rank in Egypt.”
“I know—because of—my people. Oh! it was noble.”
“But about the scarabæus——” he broke in, with a wave of his hand. “Surely it is the same with which the bandage was made fast upon your hurt—oh! years ago?”
“Yes, it is the same,” she answered, looking down.
“I thought it. And when I gave it to you, I said some words that seemed to me well spoken at the time. What were they? I cannot remember. Have you also forgotten?”
“Yes—I mean—no. You said that now I had all Egypt beneath my foot, speaking of the royal cartouche upon the scarab.”
“Ah! I recall. How true, and yet how false the jest, or prophecy.”
“How can anything be both true and false, Prince?”
“That I could prove to you very easily, but it would take an hour or more, so it shall be for another time. This scarab is a poor thing, give it back to me and you shall have a better. Or would you choose this signet? As I am no longer Prince of Egypt it is useless to me.”
“Keep the scarab, Prince. It is your own. But I will not take the ring because it is——”