and was troubled. Loftily majestic as were her form and
features, she was feminine to the core,--tender and finely perceptive.
The incisive masculine gaze abashed her. She raised one hand
deprecatingly, and her lips moved, though without sound.

He relented at this, and straightway her expression again shifted, and
she smiled so radiantly that Balder almost looked to see whence came
the light! The wondrous lines of her face curved and softened; all
that was grave vanished. A tree standing in the sober beauty of
shadow, when suddenly lit by the sun, changes as she changed; for
sunshine is the laughter of the world.

The smile refreshed her courage, for she came nearer and made a
sideways movement with her arm, apparently with the expectation that
it would pass through the stalwart young man as readily as through the
air. On encountering solid substance, she drew startled back, half in
alarm and wholly in surprise. Balder had felt her touch, first as a
benediction; then it chilled him, through remembrance of a deed
forever debarring him from aught so pure and innocent as she. The
subtleties of his philosophy might have cajoled him anywhere save in
her presence. There, he felt unmistakably guilty; yet from irrational
dread that she, whose intuitions seemed so swift and deep, might grasp
the cause of his discomposure, he strove to hide it. Last of all the
world should she know his crime!

Scarce two minutes since their meeting, yet perhaps a large proportion
of their lives had meanwhile been charmed away. No word had been
spoken,--eyes had superseded tongues. Nay, was ordinary conversation
possible with a young goddess such as this? So perfect seemed her
mastery over those profounder elements of intercourse underlying
speech, which are higher and more direct than the mechanism of
articulate words, that perhaps the latter method was unknown to her.

Nevertheless, one must say something. But what?--with what sentence of
supreme significance should he begin? Moreover, what language should
he use? for she, whose look and bearing were so alien to the land and
age, might likewise be a stranger to modern dialects. But Aryan or
Semitic was not precisely at the tip of Balder's tongue!

In the midst of his embarrassment, the startling note of the hoopoe
pierced his ear, and precipitated him into asking that great elemental
question which all created things are forever putting to one
another,--

"What is your name?"

XV