"Why did you choose to keep the tryst in answer to my message?" he
replied to her.

At this she lifted her great shining eyes and fixed them full upon him.

"I wished," she said, "to hear what you would say--but more to _see_ you
than to hear."

"And I," he began--"I came--"

She held up her white hand with a long-stemmed rose in it--as though a
queen should lift a sceptre.

"You came," she answered, "more to see _me_ than to hear. You made that
blunder."

"You choose to bear yourself like a goddess, and disdain me from Olympian
heights," he said. "I had the wit to guess it would be so."

She shook her royal head, faintly and most strangely smiling.

"That you had not," was her clear-worded answer. "That is a later
thought sprung up since you have seen my face. 'Twas quick--for you--but
not quick enough." And the smile in her eyes was maddening. "You
thought to see a woman crushed and weeping, her beauty bent before you,
her locks dishevelled, her streaming eyes lifted to Heaven--and you--with
prayers, swearing that not Heaven could help her so much as your deigning
magnanimity. You have seen women do this before, you would have seen
_me_ do it--at your feet--crying out that I was lost--lost for ever.
_That_ you expected! 'Tis not here."