, I must call it, although in that place of eternal day
the term is meaningless--bade us enter. The door slipped aside. The
chamber was small, the opal walls screening it on three sides, the
black opacity covering it, the fourth side opening out into a
delicious little walled garden--a mass of the fragrant, luminous
blooms and delicately colored fruit. Facing it was a small table of
reddish wood and from the omnipresent cushions heaped around it arose
to greet us--Yolara.

Larry drew in his breath with an involuntary gasp of admiration and
bowed low. My own admiration was as frank--and the priestess was well
pleased with our homage.

She was swathed in the filmy, half-revelant webs, now of palest blue.
The corn-silk hair was caught within a wide-meshed golden net in which
sparkled tiny brilliants, like blended sapphires and diamonds. Her own
azure eyes sparkled as brightly as they, and I noted again in their
clear depths the half-eager approval as they rested upon O'Keefe's
lithe, well-knit figure and his keen, clean-cut face. The high-arched,
slender feet rested upon soft sandals whose gauzy withes laced the
exquisitely formed leg to just below the dimpled knee.

"Some giddy wonder!" exclaimed Larry, looking at me and placing a hand
over his heart. "Put her on a New York roof and she'd empty Broadway.
Take the cue from me, Doc."

He turned to Yolara, whose face was somewhat puzzled.

"I said, O lady whose shining hair is a web for hearts, that in our
world your beauty would dazzle the sight of men as would a little
woman sun!" he said, in the florid imagery to which the tongue lends
itself so well.

A flush stole up through the translucent skin. The blue eyes softened
and she waved us toward the cushions. Black-haired maids stole in,
placing before us the fruits, the little loaves and a steaming drink
somewhat the colour and odor of chocolate. I was conscious of
outrageous hunger.

"What are you named, strangers?" she asked.

"This man is named Goodwin," said O'Keefe. "As for me, call me
Larry."

"Nothing like getting acquainted quick," he said to me--but kept his
eyes upon Yolara as though he were voicing another honeyed phrase. And
so she took it, for: "You must teach me your tongue," she murmured.

"Then shall I have two words where now I have one to tell you of your
loveliness," he answered.

"And also that'll take time," he spoke to me. "Essential occupation
out of which we can't be drafted to ma