will come? Not to the Owl's Nest:
to the Pelican Island. And though your love is far less, far cooler than
mine, yet you will not defraud me of the best happiness of my life?"

"How could I?" he asked, as if he felt wounded by such distrust. "What
detains me must be something absolutely unavoidable."

Ledscha's eyebrows contracted sharply, and in a choked voice she
exclaimed: "Nothing must detain you--nothing, whatever it may be! Though
death should threaten, you will be with me just at midnight."

"I will, if it is possible," he protested, painfully touched by the
vehemence of her urging. "What can be more welcome to me also than to
spend happy hours with you in the silence of a moonlight night? Besides,
my stay in Tennis will not be long."

"You are going?" she asked in a hollow tone.

"In three or four days," he answered carelessly; "then Myrtilus and I
will be expected in Alexandria. But gently--gently--how pale you are,
girl! Yes, the parting! But in six weeks at latest I shall be here
again; then real life will first begin, and Eros will make the roses
bloom for us."

Ledscha nodded silently, and gazing into his face with a searching look
asked, "And how long will this season of blossoming last?"

"Several months, girl; three, if not six."

"And then?"

"Who looks so far into the future?"

She lowered her glance, and, as if yielding to the inevitable, answered:
"What a fool I was! Who knows what the morrow may bring? Are we even
sure whether, six months hence, we shall not hate, instead of loving,
each other?"

She passed her hand across her brow as she spoke, exclaiming: "You said
just now that only the present belonged to man. Then let us enjoy it
as though every moment might be the last. By the light of the full moon
to-night, the happiness which has been predicted to me must begin. After
it, the orb between the horns of Astarte will become smaller; but when
it fulls and wanes again, if you keep your promise and return, then,
though they may curse and condemn me, I will come to your studio and
grant what you ask. But which of the goddesses do you intend to model
from me as a companion statue to the Demeter?"

"This time it can not be one of the immortelles," he answered
hesitatingly, "but a famous woman, an artist who succeeded in a
competition in vanquishing even the august Athene."

"So it is no goddess?" Ledscha asked in a disappointed tone.

"No, child, but the most skilful woman who ever