Heretofore the intercourse between the two had been tentative and incoherent,—a doubtful, aimless grappling with strange conditions which seemed delightful, but might mask unknown dangers. No solid basis of mutual acquaintanceship had been even approached. Balder, accustomed though he was to woman's society, knew not how to apply his experience here; while Gnulemah had not yet perhaps decided whether her visitor were natural or supernatural. The man was probably the less at ease of the two, finding himself in a pass through which tradition nor culture could pilot him. Gnulemah, being used to daily communion with things mysterious to her understanding, would scarcely have altered her demeanor had Balder turned out to be a genie!
But the first step towards fixing the relations between them was already taken. The young man's abrupt movement of his hand to his face (probably with purpose to stroke the beard no longer growing there) had not only scared away the hoopoe, but had flashed on Gnulemah a ray from the diamond ring.
She rose to her feet suddenly, yet easily as a startled serpent rears erect its body. Vivid emotion lightened in her face. Balder knew not what to make of the look she gleamed at him.
"What are you?" she asked, her voice sunk to almost a whisper. "Hiero?—are you Hiero?"
Balder stared confounded,—partly inclined to smile!
"Come back,—transfigured!" she went on, her eyes deepening with awe. What did it mean? Somewhat disturbed, Balder got also on his feet. As he did so, Gnulemah crouched before him, holding out her hands like a suppliant. An on-looker might have fancied that the would-be God had found his worshipper at last!
"My name is Balder," his Deityship managed to say. As he spoke, the sun rounded the corner of the house, and the light fell brightly on him, Gnulemah kneeling in shadow. The glory of his splendid youth seemed to have shone out from within him in sudden effulgence.
"Balder!" she slowly repeated, still gazing up at him.
"There is a relationship between us," said he, a vague uneasiness urging him to take refuge behind the quaint fantasy, "You are the daughter of fire, and I the descendant of the sun!"
He spoke the unpremeditated notion which the sunburst had created in his brain,—spoke not seriously nor yet lightly. He had as much right to his genealogy as she to hers.