"Nay, let it pass," he said placidly, dropping into a chair. "All this
savors too much of the future and is out of place in the happy
improvidence of the present."
"Let it all pass?" Ta-user asked. "Nay, I would hold the prince to the
promise he made a moment agone, when the choosing of the new murket
comes round again."
"Do thou so, for me, then, when that time comes," Kenkenes interrupted.
Ta-user laughed very softly and delivered the young artist a level look
of understanding from her topaz eyes. "I fear thou art indeed
improvident," she continued, "if thou leavest thy future to others."
"Then all the world is improvident, since it belongeth to others to
shape every man's future. But Hotep, the lawgiver, denies this thing.
He holds that every man builds for himself."
"Right, Hotep!" Rameses exclaimed. "It was such belief that made a
world-conqueror of my grandsire."
"Nay, thy pardon, O my Prince. Hotep's counsel will not always hold,"
Kenkenes objected.
"Give me to know wherein it faileth," the prince demanded.
"Alas! in a thousand things. In truth a man even draws his breath by
the leave of others."
"By the puny god, Harpocrates!" the prince cried, scoffing. "That is
the weakest avowal I have heard in a moon!"
Kenkenes flushed, and Rameses, recovering from his amusement, pressed
his advantage.
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