clearly summing me up. I was frankly doing the like by her. Gods!
but those few short seconds made me see a woman such as I never
imagined could have lived.

I know I have placed it on record earlier in this writing
that, during all the days of a long official life, women have had
no influence over me. But I have been quick to see that they often
had a strong swaying power over the policies of others, and as a
consequence I have made it my business to study them even as I have
studied men. But this woman who sat under the sacred snakes in her
golden half-castle on the mammoth's back, fairly baffled me. Of
her thoughts I could read no single syllable. I could see a body
slight, supple, and beautifully moulded; in figure rather small.
Her face was a most perfect book of cleverness, yet she was fair,
too, beyond belief, with hair of a lovely ruddiness, cut short in
the new fashion, and bunching on her shoulders. And eyes! Gods!
who could plumb the depths of Phorenice's eyes, or find in mere
tint a trace of their heaven-made colour?

It was plain, also, that she in her turn was searching me down
to my very soul, and it seemed that her scrutiny was not without
its satisfaction. She moved her head in little nods as I drew
near, and when I did the requisite obeisance permitted to my rank,
she bade me in a voice loud and clear enough for all at hand to
hear, never to put forehead on the ground again on her behalf so
long as she ruled in Atlantis.

"For others," she said, "it is fitting that they should do so,
once, twice, or several times, according to their rank and station,
for I am Empress, and they are all so far beneath me; but you are