As the goddess uttered this last question I felt within me a strange delight. There sat beside me, floating on that mysterious wave, the idol of a great nation, the deity of its universal faith, a divinity of power, glory and beauty, laying aside spiritual empire to become the companion of a simple explorer of the internal world, her discoverer and her friend, by a most happy chance of fortune. As these thoughts swiftly ran through my brain, and before I had time to reply, music, soft, weird, intensely intoxicating, was blown from among the tempestuous bloom of the paradises. The melody seemed the holiest thrill of hearts communing in the rapture of love! To explain the sweetness of the moment is impossible--the goddess was so alluring and serene. She kept her own emotions in the background as the result of a proud devotion to duty, and yet I felt swathed with a soul that seemed to have found an opportunity worthy the expression of its life. A situation so daring, yet so tender, required an equally daring and reverent soul to meet it. I felt all its surpassing loveliness. "Our poets," I replied, "have written of love in all its phases, describing the most spiritual passions as well as the most lustful. In poetry love may be any phase of love, but the reality is a compound of lust and spirituality, being rooted both in body and soul." "Do your people," said the goddess, "never differentiate lust and love and obtain in real life only a spiritual romantic love such as we do in Atvatabar?" "We believe, your holiness," I replied, "that such a love as you refer to is only to be found in a spiritual state and is the secret of disembodied blessedness." "You must see Egyplosis," said she, "ere you depart from us, and there learn the possibility of ideal love in actual life." "To discover such a joy," I replied, "will repay my journey to Atvatabar a thousandfold." We alighted from the boat on a rocky margin of the lake that led into a labyrinth of flowers. Here we wandered at will, discovering at every step new delights. Lyone was not only a goddess, but also the fond incarnation of a comrade soul. CHAPTER XXIV. THE JOURNEY TO EGYPLOSIS. Never did time pass so rapidly or so happily as the days spent in the palace of the goddess. Although I met Lyone at the daily banquets and at our scientific discussions with the astronomers, naturalists, chemists, geologists, physicians and philosophers of Atvatabar, yet neither by look nor gesture did she betray the slightest memory of that ravishing scene in her garden only a few days before. Again and again I asked myself, Was it possible that that calm and crowned goddess of the pantheon was a being that could feel thrilled with ordinary human ecstasy? Would I, most daring of men, ever be permitted to kiss that far-off mouth divine, and not be slain by one dreadful glance of contempt? [Illustration: The Blocus.]