"And now thou goest forth again into the city?"
Charmides looked at her to read the answer that she wished him to make. But the words on his lips were never spoken.
Istar was standing before him a little to the left of the door-way, from which the curtain was half pulled aside. The daylight fell relentlessly over her face and her form. It was upon her face that the Greek's eyes rested: rested in wonder, in amazement, finally with something more than either of those things. Was this last expression one of horror? Istar saw the look and read it; and before its piercing inquiry she quivered. Involuntarily she began to shrink away from him, but escape him now she could not. Knowledge was his. There was no concealment. Then, at length, she accepted the situation, as it was necessary that she should.
"I am a woman," she said, with a gentleness and an unconscious dignity that nonplussed him anew. "Thou mayst not kneel to a woman, Greek. Rise up."
"I kneel to thee, O Istar!" was his reply.
Then, indeed, her lips quivered, but with a little effort she regained her self-control. "Go then, Charmides. Thou knowest me—now."
Charmides got to his feet, but he made no move towards departure. Instead, after an instant's hesitation, he went a little closer to her, and spoke as he might have spoken to Baba—Baba as she was now.
"Istar—art thou indeed the Istar whom first I beheld in Babylon?"
"Yea, Charmides. I am that Istar; yet I am not the same. Then was I more than human. Now—less."