For some time she rested her eyes upon his face in a musing fashion. Then, with a strange inflection, she asked, "What is love?"
"I have but just beheld the cause," he returned; "give me a little space and I infer its properties as a consequence. At present I am troubled to know whether the same vessel can contain both cause and consequence."
Not without haste, she assured him that she would consider her question answered, and enquired, "Does it become thee to risk so wise a head at the bidding of so foolish a heart?"
"It lay not, and does not lie, with me to make it becoming."
This answer did not appear to please her, for, moving her head, she proceeded with an instant change of tone, "One thing I have ever desired to know. What is the secret of the smile of the Sphinx?"
He was taken aback.
"What? Canst thou not answer, thou who didst assert that thou hadst in thy bosom the answer to all secrets, O Very Veracious one?"
Seeing her smiling, he replied, "I have not seen the Sphinx unless I see her now."
"I perceive that thou canst not answer. Yet because of thy youth and thy beauty I will spare thee."
"Spare me not, since before thou hast not spared me."