That was of Eve; now follow with your best apologies and look across the mists and moonbeams and behold a lady fair. For the Prince stood alone, looking on Lucifram with an expression hardly kind upon his face, when last you stood within the magic circle. And now you see behind him a lesser form though tall--a slightly different beauty. It is the Princess Vestné--bend your head--his wife. Not like him in sombre black, with the bright blood-stones as an only ornament--she stands there the personification of light. A diamond crescent of purest light, as far removed from earth gems as they are from glass, shines in her silken hair, that dusky rich shade, one of Heaven’s own hues--Hell’s too, for both in beauty are alike. Then for her face--you saw that of the Prince quite plainly--would you look on hers? See, that contemptuous smile of pride has deepened--you may not see so plain--for Heaven seems quite made up of the male persuasion, but that’s because the lovelier half--I mean the gentler, tenderer half--is hidden away from our coarse sight--rarest of rarest visions. Tender and gentle were the words, and yet, look through this gathering, deepening mist that blurs the picture. Your impression of that face? Oh, very cold and proud and cruel, a winsome grace, a silent fascination, that draws every chord of your spirit towards that princely watching-place. What music fell upon the forest’s silence! A laugh that the crawling spirits never heard--hidden under the thick-roofed foliage. The Princess laughed, and went close up to him, slipping her hand in his, as loving as a child might be, as simple. But oh! no, no, she _didn’t_ talk like Milton, because she wasn’t dressed in stiff brocade, nor in the naked beauty of long curls. No; the Princess talked (she was admirably well-bred) just as they talked on Lucifram, because she looked that way, and, as she spoke, she raised her hands and clasped them lazily behind her head. “The net wants repairing,” she said. “I stood here yesterday and looked at it--a beastly, little fly has struggled through.” He laughed, as one just married yesterday instead of years past counting, and the humour in his eyes dimmed for a little time their hardness. “A butterfly, you mean. I watched the turn-out. It was a radiant one--worthy our--our nephew.” But she shook her head, and answered, with a touch of chilling hauteur: “He’s no relation. On Lucifram he would be called a natural son--or what’s that other word?--a rather ugly one. They have so many ugly words, one really loses count of them.” He let the light question pass unanswered, but the smile died from his eyes and lips, and, in response to his changing humour, she changed too. “I can’t understand,” she said, with a faint intonation of passion that reached you echoing on the trembling air,--“I cannot understand the fairness or the justness of it. He should be obliged to play upon our side or on the other.”