Irenya looked full at him, a repressed anger blazing in her large black eyes. "Let my lord save his kisses for those who value them!" she said contemptuously, "'Twere pity he should waste them upon me, to whom they are unmeaning and therefore all unwelcome!" He laughed heartily, and instantly loosened her from his embrace. "Off, off with thee, sweet virtue! ... fairest prude!" he cried, still laughing.. "Live out thy life an thou wilt, empty of love or passion--count the years as they slip by, leaving thee each day less lovely and less fit for pleasure, ... grow old,--and on the brink of death, look back, poor child, and see the glory thou hast missed and left behind thee! ... the light of love and youth that, once departed, can dawn again no more!" And lifting himself slightly from his cushions he kissed his hand playfully to the girl, who, as though suddenly overcome by a sort of vague regret, still lingered, gazing at him, while a faint color crept through her cheeks like the deepening hue on the leaves of an opening rose. Sah-luma saw her hesitation, and his face grew yet more radiant with malicious mirth. "Hence.. hence, Irenya!" he exclaimed--"Escape temptation quickly while thou mayest! Support thy virgin pride in peace! ... thou shalt never say again Sah-luma's kisses are unwelcome! The Poet's touch shall never wrong or sanctify thy name!--thou art safe from me as pillared icicles in everlasting snow! Dear little one, be happy without love if that be possible! ... nevertheless take heed thou do not weakly clamor in the after-years for once rejected joy!--Now bid yon waiting Priest attend me,--tell him I can but spare a few brief moments audience." Irenya's head drooped,--Theos saw tears in her eyes,--but she managed to restrain them, and with something of a defiant air she made her formal obeisance and withdrew. She did not return again, but a page appeared instead, ushering in with ceremonious civility a tall personage, clad in flowing white robes and muffled up to the eyes in a mantle of silver tissue,--a majestic, mysterious, solemn-looking individual, who, pausing on the threshold of the apartment, described a circle in the air with a small staff he carried, and said in monotonous accents: "By the going-in and passing-out of the Sun through the Gates of the East and the Gates of the West,--by the Vulture of Gold and White Lotus and the countless virtues of Nagaya, may peace dwell in this house forever!" "Agreed to with all my heart!" responded Sah-luma, carelessly looking up from his couch but making no attempt to rise, . . "Peace is an excellent thing, most holy father!" "Excellent!" returned the Priest slowly advancing and undoing his mantle so that his face became fully visible,--"So truly excellent indeed, that at times it is needful to make war in order to insure it."