“No,” she said, “I shall not send you away. Do you not know, Hilary Estanol, that you are my chosen companion? Otherwise would you be here with me now? The word love does not alarm me; I have heard it too often. Only I think it very meaningless. Let us put it aside for the present. If you let yourself love me you must suffer; and I do not want you to suffer yet. When pain comes to you the youth will go from your face; you do not know how to preserve it, and I like your youth.” Hilary made no answer. It was not easy to answer such a speech, and Hilary was not in the humour for accomplishing any thing difficult. His brain was confused by the fumes of the incense and by the strange scenes so mysteriously enacted before his eyes. He scarcely knew what Fleta this was that stood beside him. And yet he knew he loved her though he distrusted her! With each moment that he passed by her side he worshipped her more completely, and the disbelief interfered less and less with his proud joy in being admitted to her intimacy. “Now,” said Fleta, “I want you to do a new thing. I want you to exercise your will and compel my servants who have been pleasing us with phantasies, to show us a phantasy of your own creation. You can do this very well, if you will. It only needs that you shall not doubt you can do it. Ah! how quickly does the act follow the thought!” She uttered the last words with a little cry of amused pleasure. For the dim shadows had rapidly masked the stage and then again withdrawn, leaving the figure of Fleta very clearly visible, beautiful and passionate, her face alight with love, held clasped in Hilary’s arms, her lips pressed close to his. The real Fleta who sat beside him rose now with a shake of her head, and a laugh which was not all gay. The shadows closed instantly over the stage, and a moment later the illusion was all destroyed and the solid wall was there before Hilary’s eyes. He had become so accustomed to witness the marvellous inside this room that he did not pause to wonder; he followed Fleta as she crossed to the door, and tried to attract her attention. “Forgive me, my Princess,” he murmured over and over again. “Oh, you are forgiven,” she said at last lightly. “You have not offended, so it is easy for me to forgive. I do not think a man can help what is in his heart; at all events, no ordinary man can. And you, Hilary, have consented to be like the rest. Are you content?” “No!” he answered, instantly. And as he spoke he understood for the first time the fever that had stirred him all through his short bright life. “Content! How should I be? Moreover, is not our star the star of restlessness and action?” For the first time, Fleta turned on him a glance of real tenderness and emotion. When he said the words “our star,” it seemed as if he had touched her heart. “Ah!” she said, “How sorely I long for a companion!”