“Dark humour!” she cried in accents that were almost shrill--“Ay!--and if it be so, El-Râmi, what is my humour to you? Am I anything more to you than a cipher,--a mere slave? What have the thoughts of a foolish woman, bent with years and close to the dark gateways of the tomb, to do with one who deems himself all wisdom? What are the feelings of a wretched perishable piece of flesh and blood to a self-centred god and opponent of Nature like El-Râmi-Zarânos?” She laughed bitterly. “Pay no heed to me, great Master of the Fates invisible!--superb controller of the thoughts of men!--pay no heed to Zaroba’s ‘dark humours,’ as you call them. Zaroba has no wings to soar with--she is old and feeble, and aches at the heart with a burden of unshed tears,--she would fain have been content with this low earth whereon to tread in safety,--she would fain have been happy with common joys,--but these are debarred her, and her lot is like that of many a better woman,--to sit solitary among the ashes of dead days and know herself desolate!” She dropped her arms as suddenly as she had raised them. El-Râmi surveyed her with a touch of derision, and wrote again on the slate: “I thought you loved your charge?” Zaroba read, and drew herself up proudly, looking almost as dignified as El-Râmi himself. “Does one love a statue?” she demanded. “Shall I caress a picture? Shall I rain tears or kisses over the mere semblance of a life that does not live,--shall I fondle hands that never return my clasp? Love! Love is in my heart--yes! like a shut-up fire in a tomb,--but you hold the key, El-Râmi, and the flame dies for want of air.”