He paused with his hands on the curtains and waited for her.
"A word with thee, my Lord," she panted, chiefly from trepidation.
"I have come to expect no more than a word from thee," he said.
The answer would have sent her away in dudgeon, under any other
circumstances, but her pride could not stand in the way of this very
pressing duty.
"A boon," she said, choking back her resentment.
"A boon! Thou wouldst ask a boon of me! Nay, I will not promise, for it
may be thou comest to ask thy freedom, and that I will not grant for
spleen."
Still she curbed herself. "Nay, O Prince; I am come to ask naught of
thee which--a wife--may not justly ask of--her--lord."
He left the curtain and came close to her. "Had the words come smoothly
over thy lips, they would have meant any wife--any husband. But thy very
faltering names thee and me. What is the boon that thou mayest justly
ask of me?"
"My father--."
"Hold! There, too, I make a restriction. Already have I suffered thy
father sufficiently."
Tears leaped into her insulted eyes, and in the bright light, shining
from a lamp above her head, her emotion was very apparent.
"Thou hast begun well in thy siege of my heart, Rameses," she said.
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