“I dare to love you as a man loves a woman, not as a subject loves a queen.”
“Ah!” she answered in a new and broken voice, “that is different, is it not? Well, all women love to be loved, though some are queens and some are peasants, so why should I be angry? Rames, now, as in past days, I thank you for your love.”
“It is not enough,” he said. “What is the use of giving love? Love should be lent. Love is an usurer that asks high interest. Nay, not the interest only, but the capital and the interest to boot. Oh, Star! what happens to the man who is so mad as to love the Queen of Egypt?”
Tua considered this problem as though it were a riddle to which she was seeking an answer.
“Who knows?” she replied at length in a low voice. “Perhaps it costs him his life, or perhaps—perhaps he marries her and becomes Pharaoh of Egypt. Much might depend on whether the queen chanced to care about such a man.”
Now Rames shook like a reed in the evening wind, and he looked at her with glowing eyes.
“Tua,” he whispered, “can it be possible—do you mean that I am welcome to you, or are you but drawing me to shame and ruin?”
She made no answer to him in words, only with a certain grave deliberation, laid down the little ivory sceptre that she held, and suffering her troubled eyes to rest upon his eyes, bent forward and stretched out her arms towards him.
“Yes, Rames,” she murmured into his ear a minute later, “I am drawing you to whatever may be found upon this breast of mine, love, or majesty, or shame, or ruin, or the death of one or both of us, or all of them together. Are you content to take the chances of this high game, Rames?”
“Ask it not, Tua. You know, you know!”