kings could be profligate,
openly. So, while Babylonia led her maidens to a market, while
Ethiopia ruled hers with a rod, while Arabia numbered hers among her
she-camels, Egypt gloried in national chivalry and spiritual love.

This was the sentiment of the nation, by the lips of Khu-n-Aten, the
artist king:

"Sweet love fills my heart for the queen; may she ever keep the hand of
the Pharaoh."

Whatever Egypt's mode of worshiping Khem and Isis, nothing could set at
naught this clean, impulsive, sincere avowal.

Here, then, openly and in perfect propriety was a woman abroad with her
suitor.

She might have been eighteen years old, but there was nothing girlish
in her gorgeous beauty. She was a red rose, full-blown.

Her robes were a double thickness of loose-meshed white linen, with a
delicate stripe of scarlet; her head-dress a single swathing of scarlet
gauze. She wore not one, but many kinds of jewels, and her anklets and
armlets tinkled with fringes of cats and hawks in carnelian. Her hair
was brilliant black and unbraided. Her complexion was transparent, and
the underlying red showed deeply in the small, full-lipped mouth; like
a stain in the cheeks; like a flush on the brow, and even faintly on
the dainty chin. Her eyes were large and black, with the amorous lid,
and lined with kohl beneath the lower lash. Her profile showed the
exquisite aquiline of the pure-blooded Egyptian.

Aside from the visible evidences of charm there was an atmosphere of
femininity that permeated her immediate vicinity with a witchery little
short of enchantment. She was the Lady Ta-meri, daughter of Amenemhat,
nomarch[5] of Memphis.

The Egyptian accompanying the litter was nearly thirty years of age.
He was an example of the other type of the race, differing from the
classic model of Kenkenes. The forehead retreated, the nose was long,
low, slightly depressed at the end; the mouth, thick-lipped; the eye,
narrow and almond-shaped; the cheek-bones, high; the complexion, dark
brown. Still, the great ripeness of lip, aggressive whiteness of teeth
and brilliance of eye made his face pleasant. He wore a shenti of
yellow, over it a kamis of white linen, a kerchief bound with a yellow
cord about his head, and white sandals.

He was the nephew of the king's cup-bearer, who had died without issue
at Thebes during the past month. His elder brother had succeeded his
father to a high office in the priesthood, but he, Nechutes, w