re blood; supped early;
and, thanks to the strength of youth, was well recovered from the
violent exertion he had undergone.

It is neither wise nor honest to detract from beauty as a quality.
There cannot be a refined soul insensible to its influence. The story
of Pygmalion and his statue is as natural as it is poetical. Beauty is
of itself a power; and it was now drawing Ben-Hur.

The Egyptian was to him a wonderfully beautiful woman--beautiful
of face, beautiful of form. In his thought she always appeared to
him as he saw her at the fountain; and he felt the influence of
her voice, sweeter because in tearful expression of gratitude to
him, and of her eyes--the large, soft, black, almond-shaped eyes
declarative of her race--eyes which looked more than lies in the
supremest wealth of words to utter; and recurrences of the thought
of her were returns just so frequent of a figure tall, slender,
graceful, refined, wrapped in rich and floating drapery, wanting
nothing but a fitting mind to make her, like the Shulamite, and in
the same sense, terrible as an army with banners. In other words,
as she returned to his fancy, the whole passionate Song of Solomon
came with her, inspired by her presence. With this sentiment and
that feeling, he was going to see if she actually justified them.
It was not love that was taking him, but admiration and curiosity,
which might be the heralds of love.

The landing was a simple affair, consisting of a short stairway,
and a platform garnished by some lamp-posts; yet at the top of
the steps he paused, arrested by what he beheld.

There was a shallop resting upon the clear water lightly as
an egg-shell. An Ethiop--the camel-driver at the Castalian
fount--occupied the rower's place, his blackness intensified by
a livery of shining white. All the boat aft was cushioned and
carpeted with stuffs brilliant with Tyrian red. On the rudder
seat sat the Egyptian herself, sunk in Indian shawls and a very
vapor of most delicate veils and scarfs. Her arms were bare to
the shoulders; and, not merely faultless in shape, they had the
effect of compelling attention to them--their pose, their action,
their expression; the hands, the fingers even, seemed endowed with
graces and meaning; each was an object of beauty. The shoulders
and neck were protected from the evening air by an ample scarf,
which yet did not hide them.

In the glance he gave her, Ben-Hur paid no attention to these details.
There was