your coldness brings
you more benefit in a certain matter than any show of passion could
earn. There, get you gone, if the atmosphere of a maiden's bed-chamber
hurts your rustic modesty, and your Gods keep you, Deucalion, if that's
the phrase, and if you think They can do it. Get you gone, man, and
leave me solitary."

I had taken the plan of the pyramid out of the archives before the
banquet and learned it thoroughly, and so was able to thread my way
through its angular mazes without pause or blunder. I, too, was heavily
wearied with what I had gone through since my last snatch of sleep, but
I dare set apart no time for rest just then. Nais must be sacrificed in
part for the needs of Atlantis; but a plan had come to me by which it
seemed that she need not be sacrificed wholly; and to carry this through
there was need for quick thought and action.

Help came to me also from a quarter I did not expect. As I passed along
the tortuous way between the ponderous stones of the pyramid, which led
to the apartments that had been given me by Phorenice, a woman glided
up out of the shadows of one of the side passages, and when I lifted my
hand lamp, there was Ylga.

She regarded me half-sullenly. "I have lost my place," she said, "and it
seems I need never have spoken. She intended to have you all along, and
it was not a thing like that which could put her off. And you--you just
think me officious, if, indeed, you have ever given me another thought
till now."

"I never forget a kindness."

"Oh, you will learn that trick soon now. And you are going to marry her,
you! The city is ringing with it. I thought at least you were honest,
but when there is a high place to be got by merely taking a woman with
it, you are like the rest. I thought, too, that you would be one of
those men who have a distrust for ruddy hair. And, besides she is
little."

"Ylga," I said, "you have taught me that these walls are full of
crannies and ears. I will listen to no word against Phorenice. But I
would have further converse with you soon. If you still have a kindness
for me, go to the chamber that is mine and wait for me there. I will
join you shortly."

She drooped her eyes. "What do you want of me, Deucalion?"

"I want to say something to you. You will learn who it concerns later."

"But is it--is it fitting for a maiden to come to a man's room at this
hour?"

"I know little of your conventions here in this new Atlantis. I am
Deucalion,