chain which,
whether he went or stayed, would never break. Flowers, birds, shadows
in the mirror,--less than nothing would these things be to her from
this hour on.

Heretofore the intercourse between the two had been tentative and
incoherent,--a doubtful, aimless grappling with strange conditions
which seemed delightful, but might mask unknown dangers. No solid
basis of mutual acquaintanceship had been even approached. Balder,
accustomed though he was to woman's society, knew not how to apply his
experience here; while Gnulemah had not yet perhaps decided whether
her visitor were natural or supernatural. The man was probably the
less at ease of the two, finding himself in a pass through which
tradition nor culture could pilot him. Gnulemah, being used to daily
communion with things mysterious to her understanding, would scarcely
have altered her demeanor had Balder turned out to be a genie!

But the first step towards fixing the relations between them was
already taken. The young man's abrupt movement of his hand to his face
(probably with purpose to stroke the beard no longer growing there)
had not only scared away the hoopoe, but had flashed on Gnulemah a ray
from the diamond ring.

She rose to her feet suddenly, yet easily as a startled serpent rears
erect its body. Vivid emotion lightened in her face. Balder knew not
what to make of the look she gleamed at him.

"What are you?" she asked, her voice sunk to almost a whisper.
"Hiero?--are you Hiero?"

Balder stared confounded,--partly inclined to smile!

"Come back,--transfigured!" she went on, her eyes deepening with awe.
What did it mean? Somewhat disturbed, Balder got also on his feet. As
he did so, Gnulemah crouched before him, holding out her hands like a
suppliant. An on-looker might have fancied that the would-be God had
found his worshipper at last!

"My name is Balder," his Deityship managed to say. As he spoke, the
sun rounded the corner of the house, and the light fell brightly on
him, Gnulemah kneeling in shadow. The glory of his splendid youth
seemed to have shone out from within him in sudden effulgence.

"Balder!" she slowly repeated, still gazing up at him.

"There is a relationship between us," said he, a vague uneasiness
urging him to take refuge behind the quaint fantasy, "You are the
daughter of fire, and I the descendant of the sun!"

He spoke the unpremeditated notion which the sunburst had created in
his brain,--spoke not seriously