"Is not Zud a man—and wears he not the cross at least—and comes he not among the Gayana at will?" stammered Croft, more disturbed than he cared to admit at her manner and words.
And as he paused she blazed out in a fashion of almost scathing contempt. "A man, yes, is Zud—one in whom the flame of life burns low, who comes thither only when the work of him he serves demands it; who speaks, when he comes, naught but what to him seems truth."
Croft instinctively flinched. Her allusion to what he felt she considered his own deceit in regard to himself flicked him despite his own knowledge of his own sincerity in all that he had done. The sensation which gripped him was due to no sense of guilt, but was more a poignant regret that she should have been led to consider him in any way false to the holiest emotions of his life.
"What seems truth, aye," he rejoined, therefore quickly holding Naia's eyes, from which flashed what seemed a purple fire, with his own. "Yet what man shall know the mind of Zitu, save as by his own interpretation, or be free from error in his words at times, even though years should have taught him discretion in his tongue?"
Naia's lip curled. As Zud had said, hers was a haughty spirit—one not prone to break or yield as a weaker might have done. And now she refused to give ground in her position even with this man to whom she had given her love in the past—had stood ready to yield herself in every way the word implied. "At least," said she, "Zud makes no claim of being any other than he is."
"Nor do I." Croft drew himself up. He seized what appeared to him an opportunity for arresting her sense of justice, which past experience had taught him was true and fair if once it were reached. "Have I claimed ever to be aught save a man who loved thee? Was it I or Zud who named me Mouthpiece of Zitu while I slept, or by whose orders, when I asked for clothing, was given me this priestly dress? Has Jasor of Nodhur ever in the past sought any greater exaltation in rank or fame or power than that alone which would bring him to your side? Have his spirit, his lips sought ever to call out to any other save to thee alone? Have not his arms fought ever those enemies who were thine because of his love for Naia of Aphur—to keep her country safe, herself from the pollution of other arms less clean?"
And now for the first time it seemed that the Princess Naia faltered. Some of the tension went out of her graceful figure. Doubt crept into her eyes. "You—you," she asked a broken question, "would have me believe the Mouthpiece of Zitu, a—man?"
"Yes—as he is—a man who loves you as none ever loved you before." Croft threw out his arms. "Seem I not a man to you, Naia of Aphur—maid of gold—who have willingly lain in my arms, yielded me your lips—before this—who stand here now in the quarters of the Gayana, pledged to me by Lakkon—as well as by yourself. Is a man any less a man because he wears the garments of a priest?"
"Hold, in Zitu's name!" Abruptly a tremor, a shudder shook the slender, half-veiled form he watched. "Man, though he be a priest, is sworn to chastity in Zitu's sight. Yet you, whom Zud names the Mouthpiece of Zitu—"