Zillah's first welcome of Hiram was followed by a playful frown. She held him at arm's-length, and curiously inspected his raiment.
"For shame, my Lord Hiram! I believe you have borrowed your cousin Rubaal's clothes—the same he came to woo me in the day before you and I were betrothed. You are more goodly-appearing with your sailor's cap and coarse chiton than in these fashions of Tyre. See! I have discarded my cap of pearls, and would not put on half the jewels Layah wanted me to, because I thought you would like me better as I am."
She dexterously loosed his triple collar, and flung it upon a divan; then plucked the great diamond from his scarf.
"Hold!" cried Hiram. "Do not throw that away. It may buy back our throne, if Egbalus steals it. Let me put it here, where Artaxerxes himself would not dare to pluck it."
He inserted the glowing jewel in the folds of the sinus of her dress.
"But why do you talk so much of Egbalus, dear Hiram?" she asked, as she drew him to her side upon the divan. "Egbalus is only a priest, not even a prince. And you have often said you did not believe in the priests. Why care for what you do not believe in?"
"I do believe in the priests," said he, "just as I believe in scorpions and other pests, because they are disagreeable facts. I suppose I ought to be above letting them annoy me, as the people in the country build booths on the roofs of their houses, and go to sleep there, knowing that the scorpions cannot crawl so high. But I cannot sleep if I so much as hear these priestly vermin scratch.
Do you remember, Zillah, the stories we used to invent as children with Layah's help? They were generally about a king who was driven from his throne, and went wandering over the world, and lost his queen somewhere, and could not find her. You used to call yourself the queen, and imagine all sorts of things you did without—without me; for I was always the king, was I not?"
"And I always found you, too; and now I am going to keep you, and not let you go wandering even in my dreams," replied the fair girl, throwing her arm fondly about the shoulder of Hiram, with her cheek against his. "Even Astarte does not have so good a hold on Tammuz, or, as the Greeks call him, Adonis, when she has found him come to life again, as I have on my Adonai—my lord."
Her lustrous eyes, as she gazed into his, seemed to drink love from his heart.