Demetrios repeated these words as he walked and a vague belief in them oppressed him with sadness. He had never believed in oracles drawn from the bodies of victims or from the movements of the planets. Such affinities seemed to him much too problematic. But the complex lines of the hand had of themselves a horoscopic aspect which was entirely individual and which he regarded with uneasiness. Thus the prediction remained in his mind. He, too, gazed at the palm of his left hand where his life was displayed in mysterious and ineffaceable lines. He saw the signs without being able to understand their meaning, and passing his hand across his eyes he changed the subject of his meditation. Chrysis, Chrysis, Chrysis. The name beat in him like a fever. To satisfy her, to conquer her, to enclose her in his arms, to flee away with her to Syria, Greece, Rome or elsewhere, any place, in fact, where he had no mistresses and she no lovers: that was what he had to do and to do at once! Of the three presents she had demanded one was already obtained. Two others remained to be procured, the comb and the necklace. “First the comb,” he thought. He hastened his steps. Every evening after sunset the wife of the High Priest sat with her back to the forest upon a marble seat from which a view of the sea could be obtained, and Demetrios was aware of this, for Touni, like many others, had been enamoured of him, and once she had told him that the day he desired her he could take her. Thither he made his way. She was there; but she did not see him approach; she was reclining with her eyes closed and her arms outstretched. She was an Egyptian. Her name was Touni. She wore a thin tunic of bright purple without clasps or girdle, and with no other embroidery than two black stars upon her breasts. The thin stuff reached down to her knees and her little, round feet were shod with shoes of blue leather. Her skin was very swarthy, her lips were very thick, her fragile and supple waist seemed bowed down by the weight of her full breast. She was sleeping with open lips and quietly dreaming. Demetrios took his seat in silence by her side. He gradually drew nearer to her. A young shoulder, smooth and dark and muscular, delicately offered itself to him. Lower down the purple muslin tunic was open at the thigh. Demetrios gently touched her, but she did not awake. Her dream changed but was not dispelled. The eternal sea shimmered beneath a moon which was like a vast cup of blood, but still Touni slept on with bowed head. The purple of the moon upon the horizon reached her from across the sea. Its glorious and fateful light bathed her in a flame which seemed motionless; but slowly the shadow withdrew from the Egyptian woman; one by one her black stars appeared, and at last there suddenly emerged from the shadows the comb, the royal comb desired by Chrysis.