And he, with anger:
“Would it not be thought a woman should know her business! For what is beauty but to hold a man prisoner to the senses? And you are beautiful as the woman the high Gods made with flowers—how then do you fail? Does he not love you?”
“Sir, he loves me. But not me only. He loves something that I know not, and his thought flies away to it as a dove flies home.”
And he said:
“True, true! It is true. What is this thing? For I, too, have felt it. When I have spoken of wealth and power and pride, I have known that as you, daughter, say, his soul is escaped and gone, I cannot tell where. But have no fear. Tell me only this—has never a word, never a sight of sorrow crept into the paradises I have made for him?”
And she answered:
“Not one. All is joy unceasing.”
“And no sign of age, of sickness, of death? For, as I have told you, he must not know that these things are, and until he passed into your keeping, the secret was well guarded.”
And she replied gravely:
“The secret is well guarded. He does not know. When he speaks, it is of an eternity of delight and of nothing else. And yet—if I may speak and live——”