The wish being vain, if not immoral, he laughed wryly at himself and picked up a book that he found lying on the mantelpiece. It was a little volume of light verse, and it whiled away the time until his hostess reappeared. This was about half an hour after her exit. She entered, radiant with triumph. "Has it seemed long?" she asked, pulling back the curtain and drawing out a chair. "An eternity," he answered smoothly enough, rising and closing the door. "And now the rest of your wonderful story, if you are not too tired." "Not at all," she said; "but it sounds odd to hear you call it 'wonderful.' To me, who lived it, it seemed inevitable and ordinary: even now it hardly seems wonderful. But this is waste of time. I must try to hurry the crisis.... Let me see, where did I stop?... Ah! I remember now.... "Well, I lived two years a prisoner, and time dulled my pain. Escape was hopeless, and I tried to be as cheerful as I could. No news reached me of the outer world--I did not even know whether my father and sister were alive. That was hard, but I, too, learned hardness from experience. "One morning Lukos came to my room as usual, but not in his usual spirits. I rallied him on his dulness (oh! we were good friends, in spite of the anomalous position; that is really the least surprising feature of the story!), but he did not respond. When at last he walked toward the window and had stood, gloomily at gaze, for several minutes, I felt alarmed. He had never been in such a mood before. 'Lukos,' I said gently, 'what is the matter?' "In a moment he was at my feet, pouring forth a torrent of words. 'Heart of my heart!' he cried in tones that would have racked a devil; 'can you ask! You know that I love you, for my eyes and soul have spoken. I bought you as merchandise, with little care; I have learned to love you as a woman should be loved, with all the strength of my being, the force of my spirit, the frenzy of a madman that rejoices in his madness! For you I would do anything--I would tear the sultan from his throne--I would seize every mosque in the empire to found a new religion, the worship of yourself! I am your master, and yet the meanest of your slaves! You can stir me with a quiver of your eyelashes--' "'Yet you will not set me free,' I said, pitying, but justly reproachful. "'No,' he groaned. 'I love you so much that I will not climb the heights of renunciation. I love you enough to respect your defenselessness, but I _can not_ let you go to be, perhaps, another's. Oh, lady of my soul, can you not be merciful? Can you not unbend from your divinity and love me? Star of the West, can you not illumine an eastern desert, for I love you--I love you!'" "Mountebank!" said Lionel with a fine contempt. He disliked Lukos.