not misty," she retorted.

"Thou hast said," he admitted, in apology. "It was not a happy term.
I meant bejeweled with repentant dew."

She shook her little finger at him.

"If thou dost persist in thy calumny of me, thou mayest come to test
thy dismal augury," she warned.

He dropped his eyes and his mouth drooped dolorously.

"I come for comfort, and I get Nechutes and all the unpropitious
possibilities that his name suggests."

"Comfort? Thou, in trouble? Thou, the light-hearted?" she laughed.

"Nay; I am discontented, but I might as well hope to heave the skies
away with my shoulders as to rebel against mine oppression. So I came
to be petted into submission."

"Nay, dost thou hear him?" the lady cried. "And he came, because he
was sure he would get it!"

"And he will go away because the Lady Ta-meri means he shall not have
it," he exclaimed. He reached toward his coif and immediately a
panic-stricken little hand stayed him.

"Nay," she said softly. "I was but retaliating. Hast thou not plagued
me, and may I not tease thee a little in revenge? Say on."

"My--but now I bethink me, I ought not to tell thee. It savors of that
which so offends thy nice sense of gentility--labor," he said, sinking
back in his easy attitude again.

"Fie, Kenkenes," she said. "Hath some one put thy slavish love of toil
under ban? Does that oppress thee?" He reproved her with a pat on the
nearest hand.

"The king toils; the priests toil; the powers of the world labor. None
but the beautiful idle may be idle, and that for their beauty's sake.
Nay, it is not that I may not work, but I may not work as I wish and I
am heart-sick therefore."

His last words ended in a tone of genuine dejection. His eyes were
fixed on the grass of the nook and his brows had knitted slightly. The
expression was a rare one for his face and in its way becoming--for the
moment at least. The hand he had patted drew nearer, and at last,
after a little hesitancy, was laid on his black hair. He lifted his
face and took cheer, from the light in her eyes, to proceed.

"Since I may speak," he began, "I shall. Ta-meri, thou knowest that as
a sculptor I work within limits. The stature of mine art must crouch
under the bounds of the ritual. It is not boasting if I say that I
see, with brave eyes, that Egypt insults herself when she creates
horrors in stone and says, 'This is my idea of art.' And these things
are not human; neither are